What if they made certain changes to crafting?

[IanArgent]

Or remove stats from gear. That way people can use whatever they find aesthetically pleasing. With bolster/level sync stats don't matter anymore anywhere outside of hm/nim ops and with no new ops coming ....

 

The tears of the forum salts would be epic! And why stop at Ops?

 

I don't think they're ready to make that clean a break with tradition, though.

[Nempo]

I have said this before...and have yet to see any reason NOT to do this.

 

Make the highest tier of gear, craftable. No, this tier of gear will NOT require a single thing from raids. No, this tier of gear will NOT require a single thing from heroics.

 

This is what it would require:

- 1k mats handed to a trainer of every green tier of crafting material your craft uses. Yes, this is an obscene amount of materials, this is how you will get the schematics. This would mean each craft would be handing in 18k of materials and require a tonne of gathering or bartering to get.

- To actually make the armor/weapon/relic/implant/etc, you have to work it up. Meaning you must make the tier 1 version, then use the tier one version with tier 2 crafting mats to turn it into tier 2...and continue all the way up to tier 9 where in finally you will have a piece of raid gear. In this way no mat becomes useless, and old planets never become dead zones as crafters will have to keep supplies of EVERY material high to continue making more.

- This also gets rid of a huge hassle to those who prefer to craft over doing other things, no need to raid or HM FP. Connecting crafting materials to these game modes is always a pointless problem, there is no reason gear should be exclusive to these individuals. After all, raiders raid because they like raiding right? Not for the exclusive carrot...or so they love to say.

 

You could even add in a bit of randomness to the process, each time you rank it up it could a chance to have an augment slot automatically put into it. Crit chance however is zero, no freebies for this.

 

This gear must have UNIQUE looks! As in, no CM sales, no past drops, and for the love of god no stupid crap hanging off of it! I'm looking at you BH armor with a cell phone tower on it, or the trooper armor with a satalite dish off the helmet. You would make people incredibly happy if you make each tier (for the armor anyway) look a little different. This would actually go a long way to making amends for not putting many new armor assets into the game that weren't CM related.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Nempo

[Deewe]

I have said this before...and have yet to see any reason NOT to do this.

 

Make the highest tier of gear, craftable. No, this tier of gear will NOT require a single thing from raids. No, this tier of gear will NOT require a single thing from heroics.

 

This is what it would require: healthy servers with plenty of people willing to craft

^ There you have the explanation why not.

[Nempo]

^ There you have the explanation why not.

 

Funny, there are healthy servers, stop holding fast to the dying ones. Also, some of those supposedly dead servers are actually amazingly active...just not when you might be playing on them.

 

Also, people would be willing to craft if it was worth it, my suggestion would make it worth it without being effortless.

[IanArgent]

I'd be willing to remove the requirement that top-most gier tiers require someone have participated in Ops. But, then, I want to send the whole "gear progress" scheme to a farm in the country.

[Vhaegrant]

I'd be willing to remove the requirement that top-most gier tiers require someone have participated in Ops. But, then, I want to send the whole "gear progress" scheme to a farm in the country.

 

Wouldn't that just be the final death knell of crafting being able to offer a return on credits?

 

I mean they've removed the need to buy up crafted items while levelling for companions (no longer need gear for them).

Removed the need to have a set of gear for each character (at most you need the non-legacy gear).

 

If you only need Ops gear for Ops I'd have thought the best solution for all is to make Ops gear non-craftable.

[IanArgent]

Wouldn't that just be the final death knell of crafting being able to offer a return on credits?

 

I mean they've removed the need to buy up crafted items while levelling for companions (no longer need gear for them).

Removed the need to have a set of gear for each character (at most you need the non-legacy gear).

 

If you only need Ops gear for Ops I'd have thought the best solution for all is to make Ops gear non-craftable.

 

You've grasped the wrong end of my position. I hold that there should not be "Ops gear." Because it never made a whole lot of sense to me that the (primary) reward for completing content is ... to make that content easier to complete. You should step up to harder content when your skill has improved to meet the challenge, not because your numbers have.

 

Crafters should be able to make gear competitive with or better than anything that drops, at every level of the game. This is already true up until endgame - in that prior to endgame, crafted gear is better than dropped gear of the same level/rating.

Edited September 30, 2016 by IanArgent

[Khevar]

Because it never made a whole lot of sense to me that the (primary) reward for completing content is ... to make that content easier to complete.

You're describing Horizontal Progression.

 

It's a perfectly valid way to design a game. But it really needs to be made that way from the outset -- it's far to late to make that kind of change to SWTOR, in my opinion.

 

Not to mention that the horizontal progression requires more new content to keep players interested. Either by more development, or more sandbox (e.g. player-driven "content").

Edited September 30, 2016 by Khevar

[Andryah]

You're describing Horizontal Progression.

 

It's a perfectly valid way to design a game. But it really needs to be made that way from the outset -- it's far to late to make that kind of change to SWTOR, in my opinion.

 

Not to mention that the horizontal progression requires more new content to keep players interested. Either by more development, or more sandbox (e.g. player-driven "content").

 

Horizontal progression is over rated in my view. Funcom based TSW completely on horizontal progression, and I found it very lacking.

[IanArgent]

You're describing Horizontal Progression.

 

It's a perfectly valid way to design a game. But it really needs to be made that way from the outset -- it's far to late to make that kind of change to SWTOR, in my opinion.

 

Not to mention that the horizontal progression requires more new content to keep players interested. Either by more development, or more sandbox (e.g. player-driven "content").

 

They already made the change when they "normalized" all group content. Incidentally, by doing so, they made the generation of new content easier, because they can generate content at a "set" difficulty (or at least on a linear difficulty curve). New story is "cheaper" than harder difficulty.

[Vhaegrant]

You've grasped the wrong end of my position. I hold that there should not be "Ops gear." Because it never made a whole lot of sense to me that the (primary) reward for completing content is ... to make that content easier to complete. You should step up to harder content when your skill has improved to meet the challenge, not because your numbers have.

 

Crafters should be able to make gear competitive with or better than anything that drops, at every level of the game. This is already true up until endgame - in that prior to endgame, crafted gear is better than dropped gear of the same level/rating.

 

Mixed feelings on that one.

 

I'm not a progression raider or ranked pvp player, and there's no solo content beyond that that actually needs any gear at the moment. I was solo running heroics the other day with an influence 1 companion, went to check the characters gear and realised they were naked, the appearance was due to outfit designer

 

Operations typically have a progression to them in difficulty, Story -> Hard -> Nightmare.

I think crafting should only be able to craft what is needed for entry into Story mode.

You run Story mode to get the gear that's good enough for Hard mode.

You run Hard mode to get the gear that's good enough for Nightmare mode.

Nightmare mode should not drop progression rated gear. This is where you stack a nice unique armour set for that specific operation, some pets, companion customisations, decorations, whatever vanity fluff that will give Nim raiders a bit of an ego boost.

 

All that happens if you give crafters the final say on end game BiS gear is they become free market GTN hogs and make the gear unaffordable, or you make it essential that everyone goes out and makes their own crafters. Neither are great outcomes... unless you're a crafter

 

I personally think crafting should be about consumable buffs that are required for Nim content, modding up gear wioth a buff (although this output has been minimised with a single stat and legacy shells), and churning out vanity fluff be it orange shells, pets, mounts, dyes, or stronghold decorations.

And make the schematics a little more imaginative for these items requiring a mixture of high and low tier crafting materials.

[Vhaegrant]

Horizontal progression is over rated in my view. Funcom based TSW completely on horizontal progression, and I found it very lacking.

 

It's a mixed bag.

Horizontal progression opens up more content all the time allowing the player to do their own thing.

 

Vertical progression introduces a gear treadmill that means only the very newest content is ever viable.

 

I'm surprised at how much effort SWTOR put into one shot content that the average player is only going to see once, while the repeatable content got some very inconsistent assets.

[psandak]

True story:

 

I've always been an avid crafter in every MMO I've played. I enjoy it. Sometimes, I delete a capped crafting alt just to make a new one. But my primary motivation has always been self-sufficiency. I am a rock. I am an island. I like not relying on other players to keep my guys clothed, equipped, fed, and ... well, implanted. When playing a new MMO, I usually start with whatever crafting skill seems most advantageous to the class I play: Synthweaver in SWTOR since I knew I'd play Sages, Woodworker in LOTRO so my Hunters had good bows, etc. Regardless how I start, eventually, I get around to mastering every trade. Sure, my Synthweaver kept my Sage dressed well, but before the time when Commendations became uniform and ubiquitous, I needed hilts and crystals ... so I made an Artificier. It wasn't long before I made a Cybertech to create mods and armor mods. My original Cybertech was a Smuggler (named Fillion ), so I needed an Armstech to make barrels and an Armormech who could make supercool shirt/vest combos. Biochem was the last member to join my Crafting Cadre. Most of those crafting alts have been deleted and replaced ... some more than once.

 

You and me both...although I do not delete characters.

 

To those asking what crafting is good for....holy crap you are REALLY missing out on metric tonnes of credits. Crafting for profit has not diminished one scintilla since 1.x. What the most profitable crafting skill is and what specific items are desirable might have changed over the years but all of the crafting skills are significantly profitable...with a surprisingly modest amount of time investment.

 

And leveling the crafting skills is impossibly easy now. I have been leveling crafting skills for DvL. With six companions (only two of which are above rank 17; the rest of 6 or lower) and ten or eleven passes (a "pass" means six companions making 5 components each [30 craftings]; two passes of grade 1 at the start, and one pass per grade after that with maybe a partial pass at the end to get to the cap) a character can be skill capped (and I get to grade 5 in one sitting; maybe 90 minutes of babysitting. Then I setup the next pass and logoff or switch characters, come back whenever and work the next grade).

[IanArgent]

It's a mixed bag.

Horizontal progression opens up more content all the time allowing the player to do their own thing.

 

Vertical progression introduces a gear treadmill that means only the very newest content is ever viable.

 

I'm surprised at how much effort SWTOR put into one shot content that the average player is only going to see once, while the repeatable content got some very inconsistent assets.

 

Story is BW's forte. (Allegedly, anyway).And I suspect they intended to have the stories replayed for different options, as that's what people do with BW games.

 

I enjoy the game (as I have for as long as I've played it); but I'm not going to pretend that without the power of the SW license, this game would or will survive on its own merits. It's a flawed gem in a really pretty setting.

[Khevar]

They already made the change when they "normalized" all group content.

I think you're confused about what horizontal progression is.

 

We still have 208 -> 212 -> 216 -> 220 -> 224 rated gear.

 

That's vertical progression. Nothing has changed other than the content itself is easier, and progression was scrambled up by "priority ops with EV/KP".

 

Shoot, BW even removed (or perhaps vastly reduced?) some of the non-gear rewards for running content. Plenty of people ran HM FPs in the 2.x-3-x cycle simply for deco drops. Why get rid of them?

Incidentally, by doing so, they made the generation of new content easier, because they can generate content at a "set" difficulty (or at least on a linear difficulty curve). New story is "cheaper" than harder difficulty.

To get rid of the "gear as a reward" concept in this game, it would need to be substituted with:

 

a) More new and interesting content that keeps people playing,

and / or

b) More sandbox elements allowing players to provide "content"

Edited September 30, 2016 by Khevar

[IanArgent]

Shoot, BW even removed (or perhaps vastly reduced?) some of the non-gear rewards for running content. Plenty of people ran HM FPs in the 2.x-3-x cycle simply for deco drops. Why get rid of them?

 

That's a really good question.

 

To get rid of the "gear as a reward" concept in this game, it would need to be substituted with:

 

a) More new and interesting content that keeps people playing,

and / or

b) More sandbox elements allowing players to provide "content"

 

Agreed. One of the things I think they're trying to do with is make option A easier.

[Transcendent]

agree with much of above. Leveling crafting is what has been gutted by the ease of gameplay, level sync and heroic lockboxes. While you can craft better than the blue lock box items, the issue is while it is crafting, you've already outleveled it. changing gear for leveling is hardly needed anymore.

 

Interesting point to raise. If anything, with the extended time introduced for a "self-sufficient" crafter, I'd prefer to see a reduction in the crafting time of the end item.

 

You spend time gathering (improved in 4.0). You then spend time crafting components. You then have to wait 30 mins for an item to actually be crafted (after going through the rest of it). That end part is the only aspect of crafting I'd like to see adjusted, in terms of reducing the time it takes.

 

I quite like the crafting system in Diablo 3, it's quite simple, yet effective in making players want to craft. SWTOR 4.0 has definitely been nudging players towards crafting, by improving things, I think it could go further. One thing I'd like to see, is being able to break down grey items into something like Conductive Flux (crafting materials), instead of just vendoring those items, the type of material you gain would depend on crafting skill / level of item.

 

One main thing I'd like to see improved for crafting? Changing the UI so it's more up to date, and consistent with something like the new companion UI (the one used for alerts etc).

[IanArgent]

I think you're confused about what horizontal progression is.

 

We still have 208 -> 212 -> 216 -> 220 -> 224 rated gear.

 

But it's become mostly pointless - all but, what, the top two elements of that can be crafted anyway, at least the "Stats" part of that. And it's now more than ever, "you run the op, to get gear so the op is easier."

 

That's vertical progression. Nothing has changed other than the content itself is easier, and progression was scrambled up by "priority ops with EV/KP".

 

There's a progression of difficulty from EV/KP to RAV/ToS - but they all award the same gear. OTOH, the progression of difficulty was flattened as well when all were normalized to 65.

 

I think they are n the middle of converting to a "horizontal progressiong," at least partially because they couldn't keep up with a vertical one.

[Khevar]

I think they are n the middle of converting to a "horizontal progressiong," at least partially because they couldn't keep up with a vertical one.

Time will tell.

 

I believe that 5.0 will bring a new level cap, and new tiers of gear. This would make the gear we're wearing today out-of-date, and pushes us to grind for the new gear.

 

If this isn't accompanied by new content, but instead requires running the same endgame (rescaled to level 70), this doesn't mean we have horizontal progression, it simply means we have BAD vertical progression.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Khevar

[Deewe]

Plenty of people ran HM FPs in the 2.x-3-x cycle simply for deco drops. Why get rid of them?

To make people buy the CM crates.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Deewe

[IanArgent]

Time will tell.

 

I believe that 5.0 will bring a new level cap, and new tiers of gear. This would make the gear we're wearing today out-of-date, and pushes us to grind for the new gear.

 

If this isn't accompanied by new content, but instead requires running the same endgame (rescaled to level 70), this doesn't mean we have horizontal progression, it simply means we have BAD vertical progression.

 

Assume, for the nonce, that they do introduce new ops and a new level of gear. (I'm not as sanguine about this eventuality as you are, incidentally). How does the "gear progression" work now? That you can only get the new gear in the new content, so you have to be able to do the new content in the old gear, and therefore all getting the new gear does is make the new content even easier, or that you need the new gear to do the new content, so you have to be able to get it in the old content, so you have to grind the old content even more before you can enter the new content?

 

This has been my issue with the gear progression for the entire time I've seen it. You're in this position of being awarded gear you don't need by the time you get it. And the argument for "well, you need it for the next stage up" is a bit of a specious one, because: there's also a big jump in the necessary personal skill level needed to step up from one Mode to another, and the next higher difficulty level still awards better-statted gear, that you don't need at that level, &c.

[Khevar]

This has been my issue with the gear progression for the entire time I've seen it. You're in this position of being awarded gear you don't need by the time you get it. And the argument for "well, you need it for the next stage up" is a bit of a specious one, because: there's also a big jump in the necessary personal skill level needed to step up from one Mode to another, and the next higher difficulty level still awards better-statted gear, that you don't need at that level, &c.

Vertical progression hearkens back to the old-school days of pen-and-paper role playing. With a few exceptions, they have both "level progression" and "gear progression." That brand-new wizard with 1d4 hitpoints is pretty squishy -- rats are scary. But that level 20 wizard would feel right at home in a campaign where you fight demigods.

 

When the paladin gets that shiny new +3 vorpal blade (with an exrta 1d10 crit damage!) after killing the Minotaur, she's going to be thrilled to equip it because things will die faster.

 

It's hardly a weird and unusual concept for "gear progression" to continue once you've reached max level.

 

Also, not everyone plays at the same level of skill, so higher levels of gear can help people defeat content they were having a hard time with.

 

For example, I was relatively new to operations when NM Explosive Conflict was added to the game. And my group (despite many many tries) was unable to finish the NM Kephess fight.

 

Then HM Terror From Beyond was added, which dropped Dread Guard gear (the best gear in the game at the time). After running TfB enough times to gear up, we were able to go back to NM EC and finally finish it.

 

Sure, better players than us could finish it in Campaign Gear. Fantastic players could possibly finish it in Rakata gear. But my group had to "overgear" it to finish.

 

To be perfectly honest, one of the benefits of the pre 4.0 system (each set of operations being in their own tier) allowed low-skill players to vastly overgear (and over level) the content, allowing them to see something they otherwise had not been able to see AT ALL.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Khevar

[LordArtemis]

I appreciate all of the comments, pro and con, and the discussion it caused. Lots of good ideas here....

 

....and Andryah, for someone with so many bad ideas, looks like quite a few of those "bad ideas" made it into the game in some form (likely coincidence of course).

 

Unless, of course, you think those changes were bad, in which case I digress.

 

At any rate, I always appreciate your counter views...However you likely know me well enough to know the suggestions are going to keep coming.

Edited October 1, 2016 by LordArtemis

[IanArgent]

Vertical progression hearkens back to the old-school days of pen-and-paper role playing. With a few exceptions, they have both "level progression" and "gear progression." That brand-new wizard with 1d4 hitpoints is pretty squishy -- rats are scary. But that level 20 wizard would feel right at home in a campaign where you fight demigods.

 

When the paladin gets that shiny new +3 vorpal blade (with an exrta 1d10 crit damage!) after killing the Minotaur, she's going to be thrilled to equip it because things will die faster.

 

It's hardly a weird and unusual concept for "gear progression" to continue once you've reached max level.

 

Also, not everyone plays at the same level of skill, so higher levels of gear can help people defeat content they were having a hard time with.

 

For example, I was relatively new to operations when NM Explosive Conflict was added to the game. And my group (despite many many tries) was unable to finish the NM Kephess fight.

 

Then HM Terror From Beyond was added, which dropped Dread Guard gear (the best gear in the game at the time). After running TfB enough times to gear up, we were able to go back to NM EC and finally finish it.

 

Sure, better players than us could finish it in Campaign Gear. Fantastic players could possibly finish it in Rakata gear. But my group had to "overgear" it to finish.

 

To be perfectly honest, one of the benefits of the pre 4.0 system (each set of operations being in their own tier) allowed low-skill players to vastly overgear (and over level) the content, allowing them to see something they otherwise had not been able to see AT ALL.

 

Except for systems that are deliberate throwbacks to xD&D (including D&D itself), PnP RPG design has moved away from that style of gear grind (and the last couple of editions of D&D have moved away from putting the stats on the gear by at least giving the option to have it be inherent to the character.)

 

I've never suggested that the increasing gear progression be done away with, but that the entire range of gear be available through means other than running Ops. That's been my complaint about both pre- and post-4.0, that crafting is a viable and "better" (if more time-consuming) method of gearing up, all the way through the game, until you hit Ops, and then you have to go to drops only, and the drops reduce the challenge of the end-game content.

[Tsetso]

Except for systems that are deliberate throwbacks to xD&D (including D&D itself), PnP RPG design has moved away from that style of gear grind (and the last couple of editions of D&D have moved away from putting the stats on the gear by at least giving the option to have it be inherent to the character.)

 

I've never suggested that the increasing gear progression be done away with, but that the entire range of gear be available through means other than running Ops. That's been my complaint about both pre- and post-4.0, that crafting is a viable and "better" (if more time-consuming) method of gearing up, all the way through the game, until you hit Ops, and then you have to go to drops only, and the drops reduce the challenge of the end-game content.

 

It's a moot point anyway since most probably there won't be any new ops, but the whole gear progression, along with the ops lockouts was supposed to be a time sink, giving the devs some time to finish the next raid. The main idea was that with the old gear you have you can kill only the 1-2 bosses, which you need to farm for better gear to progress to the next boss so clearing the whole raid would take a month or 2.

It never worked that way of course in SWTOR, i remember when we got TFB NiM someone stated that the dread guards are "mathematically impossible" and DnT skipped them, clearing the rest of the ops. Then 2 other guild succeeded to kill them with the old tier gear and basically cleared the ops in 1st week.