Slicing: Why it had to be nerfed.

[LilTikiBoy]

The fact that you ain't understanding is that you can send your crew on a scavenging mission, you pay to get materials back so you can craft.

With slicing you pay to lose money on the missions.

 

i actually tested this. ran a few archaeology missions and then checked the average price of the items i gained against the cost of the missions, lost money every time.

[Ndru]

Before the slicing nerf, I saw in chat numerous times:

 

"Just go slicing until you have enough credits for everything you need, then get another skill."

 

Even if the original intent of slicing was pure profit, it is totally imbalanced to get all the credits you need from one source.

 

From what I've seen the OP is correct, missions are for getting a few materials, but it is better to harvest nodes. If you don't want to harvest nodes you can pay more by using a mission, but those are supposed to be balanced by having a higher cost for the mats.

[Twor]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArCSGLnwZLADdGxYdlhEejBFclBjR3l1N29OaW1kYUE&gid=5

 

Is that so? While that data is still relatively new, its showing that slicing still gives money from missions, just not the stupidly high amount of credits it used to.

 

Net profit is net profit, its just that post-nerf, the net profit is lower.

 

Depends on where you set the breaking point yup. Not everyone plays 10 hours a day. Play 2 and you can be happy to not lose to much.

 

Do 10 missions, 20, 30. You CAN have a small profit. There are also many posts where the results where negative in smaller numbers of examples. E.g. -300, +200, -500 etc etc.

 

Its also pointless to argue with someone who thinks that net profit is net profit (do you grind level 1 mobs?) and that speadsheet *shrug* doesn't say anything about the amount of missions, but i guess you haven't even read it

 

*edit*

 

But since I got a nice streak:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0Ag6DSToE8ms5dEY1V05ERUp4OGFPZ1Q4VE1CVk9HaWc&toomany=true

 

You see that EVERY mission can yield negative credits there.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Twor

[patheman]

That argument only holds up if an orange post states that, sorry.

 

The only part that really need be "orange" as you put it is "You were never intended to make money running missions."

 

I was able to glean, from mature reading, this to be a matter of opinion and one of good base and sound reasoning. If a chicken walks in front of you, do you require a "orange post" to tell you its a chicken?

 

Its a good post even though some if it may lack facts from the Devs perspective. But economy is important in a game which employs that sort of mechanic. So I would like to hear a real Dev response to this post as I beleive it deserves one.

[Xontier]

Depends on where you set the breaking point yup. Not everyone plays 10 hours a day. Play 2 and you can be happy to not lose to much.

 

Do 10 missions, 20, 30. You CAN have a small profit. There are also many posts where the results where negative in smaller numbers of examples. E.g. -300, +200, -500 etc etc.

 

Its also pointless to argue with someone who thinks that net profit is net profit (do you grind level 1 mobs?) and that speadsheet *shrug* doesn't say anything about the amount of missions, but i guess you haven't even read it

 

*edit*

 

But since I got a nice streak:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0Ag6DSToE8ms5dEY1V05ERUp4OGFPZ1Q4VE1CVk9HaWc&toomany=true

 

You see that EVERY mission can yield negative credits there.

 

First off, you're completely ignoring the fact that slicing IS A GATHERING SKILL.

 

Secondly, on average slicing still gives profit.

 

Third, Just because you aren't netting 1.5 to ~3k profit per mission and instead getting closer to 500 average (again, according to that data) you're still making money for doing absolutely nothing.

 

fourth, actually is does say about the number of missions. Its called "sample size" so I guess you ahven't even read it.

 

Last, since my last post i picked up slicing out of curiosity. While it may be only ~150 right now, I have yet to lose a single credit for it. In fact, I've shown a decent profit so far for very little work. I'm not running missions, I'm gathering from nodes. Every node I click on is giving me money.

 

My point stands. Slicing is a gathering skill. If you want money, gather from nodes.

[Zennshi]

Exactly. Slicers can still gather from nodes and get their free credits.

 

Again, the only reason there has been a lack of nodes in the world is because there was a HUGE amount of people with slicing. Now that less people will have it, there will be more nodes, and slicing will be viable (just not as big of a cashcow as it used to be)

 

Are you even listening to yourself?

 

The only way someone can have a full account of 40 Slicing Companions running missions around the clock, which would detract from actually playing the game, is if they are were all at least level 40 in which and has been stated by those who do have level 50s => You earn more credits by doing space missions and vendoring grey items from flashpoints than you would if you spent that time slicing.

 

What level are you anyway? I'm curious why you seem to think that things are so black and white.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Zennshi

[Zennshi]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArCSGLnwZLADdGxYdlhEejBFclBjR3l1N29OaW1kYUE&gid=5

 

Is that so? While that data is still relatively new, its showing that slicing still gives money from missions, just not the stupidly high amount of credits it used to.

 

Net profit is net profit, its just that post-nerf, the net profit is lower.

 

 

The net profit post patch isn't worth sending 2 crew members out to do it, especially if you can, and you do run losses.

 

Augments are an invalid justification - there is a very small markets due to crafted goods being trash.

 

Pattern and missions are only worth what people are paying for, anyone who is saying that the economy is fine isn't thinking about a month from now.

 

The nerf was teusday it will take the market a little while to suffer through the losses before it will go and deflate to the point where the market hemorrhages money.

 

Do you even know what would have eventually happened if you just left it alone?

 

It would have balanced itself and the more slicers there are would mean the less desirable slicing would eventually become. If you cannot figure out why, then you should really stop posting because this is entry level community college economics, which it feels like no one here must have taken.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Zennshi

[Hohei]

Slicing may have needed a nerf, sure. However there's a vast difference between nerfing a skill and completely gutting it.

 

BW chose to make slicing about getting credits (and to a lesser extent schematics/augments). If they did not WANT slicing to have credit boxes and the chance to make money then they should've took that part out and made it actually useful to another skill in giving some mats (aside from what it does).

[Zennshi]

i fail to see how this helps prove that slicing didnt need nerfed.

 

That is because you don't understand the impact that a money supply and the positive aspects of inflation do in a pure market economy.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Zennshi

[Rainasa]

Look, the main problem i see with all these "slicing is supposed to be a gathering skill" arguments is that the gathering part of the crew skill seems to be completely an afterthought.

 

The nodes cannot get you any skill missions, or any schematics. They also always give you the smaller lock-boxes while the main issues with slicing where the rich/bountiful ones.

 

Another issue is that there are simply not that many slicing nodes in game, once i got to Alderaan i had a very hard time finding any slicing nodes but had no problems finding ones for scavenging.

 

Slicing also gave us insight into deeper issues with the crafting system in general, the biggest problem with slicing wasn't that you where making credits, it was that a level's 10-20ish was making profits meant for someone level 25-35. I really don't know why they didn't add a level cap in beta as this could really hurt the economy later on.

 

on a final note i feel that bioware really needs to decide what to do with slicing soon, if they want it to be a mission skill they should remove what little nodes they have on high level planets and increase the amount of credits made (but not to the pre-nerf levels).

 

and if they want it to be a gathering skill they need to increase the number of nodes to those of the other gathering skills and allow for you to find more medium/large lock boxes from them, because the way it is currently implemented simply will not work in the long term, the missions make too much credits at low levels, but the rewards are pathetic once you reach higher levels.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Rainasa

[Morticoccus]

There are lots of fun things you can do with sample size, if you specify too small an area you can do silly things like create spreadsheets and graphs that prove milk increases the risk of cancer, if you specify a really large area you can make something look even more lucrative than it is.

 

Say that we have a person willing to spend a million credits on slicing missions, he's got the cash, he's put the time aside, and he'll send all his companions out over the alotted time.

 

This guy may get a lot of profit, but he may spend the first 500 missions earning barely above investment or lose money, but then gain it in on the last 50 missions, or he may make a moderate amount during the entire time. If you take these 550 missions and make a spreadsheet it will, truthfully, tell you that he's making a profit. At that sample size everything's ok.

 

Now take a player that's just started the game, he's earning a few thousand at most from his missions and he wants to use slicing to pay for his material costs and the cost of training (I know, SACRILEGE right?)

 

If he spends his money on only doing 50 missions, he once again has the chance to either make or lose money, but he will get shafted much easier.

 

But.

 

You can't complain because there's spreadsheets clearly showing that slicing still gives a profit, and net profit is all that matters.

[JamieKirby]

First off, you're completely ignoring the fact that slicing IS A GATHERING SKILL.

 

Secondly, on average slicing still gives profit.

 

Third, Just because you aren't netting 1.5 to ~3k profit per mission and instead getting closer to 500 average (again, according to that data) you're still making money for doing absolutely nothing.

 

fourth, actually is does say about the number of missions. Its called "sample size" so I guess you ahven't even read it.

 

Last, since my last post i picked up slicing out of curiosity. While it may be only ~150 right now, I have yet to lose a single credit for it. In fact, I've shown a decent profit so far for very little work. I'm not running missions, I'm gathering from nodes. Every node I click on is giving me money.

 

My point stands. Slicing is a gathering skill. If you want money, gather from nodes.

 

Its a funny thing, on wow, mining and skinning are gathering skills and i can make over 5k gold from light leather and copper bars and those i can guess are grade 1 materials, but on this game, nope, can't make an ounce of profit that makes gathering from nodes worthwhile.

 

I would rather play the game and experience the story, nothing more.

 

Crafting = boring

 

Gathering in this game since the over the top slicing nerf is the only non-crafting way of making profit, yet crafters refuse to pay more then 500cr per stack of 99 units of materials of any grade, its just not worth doing, maybe its my server i am on, but i just do not make any profit worthwhile.

[Zennshi]

Its a funny thing, on wow, mining and skinning are gathering skills and i can make over 5k gold from light leather and copper bars and those i can guess are grade 1 materials, but on this game, nope, can't make an ounce of profit that makes gathering from nodes worthwhile.

 

I would rather play the game and experience the story, nothing more.

 

Crafting = boring

 

Gathering in this game since the over the top slicing nerf is the only non-crafting way of making profit, yet crafters refuse to pay more then 500cr per stack of 99 units of materials of any grade, its just not worth doing, maybe its my server i am on, but i just do not make any profit worthwhile.

 

This is what the short sighted kids don't understand, if you left it alone it would balance out.

 

The money supply would inflate the economy, which would mean that prices for items being sold would rise because you have people sitting on hundreds of thousands of credits who would piss credits into the wind because a few thousand credits for a stack of Desh is nothing, and the gatherer who is complaining about money makes a profit from doing his crew missions to gather. Everyone wins.

 

 

Down the road, these same slicers are looking at super inflated costs because they have been buying these materials for so much and so long that the prices have risen to the point where they don't wish to pay 30k for a stack of desh. But will still pay 20k, the gatherer wins.

 

 

Are we seeing the effects this would have had now? Everyone could afford that speeder and bagspaces without the help of slicers. The slicers who sat on their money didn't contribute, but that wasn't what the smart ones did with their slicing profits. Because the longer they sit on that money and don't invest into their crafting skills, the less that money is actually worth.

 

 

 

 

[Pandabutt]

This is what the short sighted kids don't understand, if you left it alone it would balance out.

 

The money supply would inflate the economy, which would mean that prices for items being sold would rise because you have people sitting on hundreds of thousands of credits who would piss credits into the wind because a few thousand credits for a stack of Desh is nothing, and the gatherer who is complaining about money makes a profit from doing his crew missions to gather. Everyone wins.

 

 

Down the road, these same slicers are looking at super inflated costs because they have been buying these materials for so much and so long that the prices have risen to the point where they don't wish to pay 30k for a stack of desh. But will still pay 20k, the gatherer wins.

 

 

Are we seeing the effects this would have had now? Everyone could afford that speeder and bagspaces without the help of slicers. The slicers who sat on their money didn't contribute, but that wasn't what the smart ones did with their slicing profits. Because the longer they sit on that money and don't invest into their crafting skills, the less that money is actually worth.

 

 

 

 

 

Totally Agree.

 

I've been trying to get people to understand this exact same thing myself as well. We had a functional economy before the NERF, we had the cash flow to bring prices up to par allowing crafting to profit. But instead of taking advantage of what we had, people abused the skill, complained, and kept pricing things low.

 

The NERF may have been necessarily, but not to this degree.

[knokout]

By taking slicing people lost a gathering skill that they could use to level their crafting skill, this is why these skills were designed, to help with crafting so they could sell the things they made. Sure people that made tons of cash bought items from crafters, but most people don't buy crafted items before level 50 just because an upgrade will always come. So while slicing makes people leveling up tons of cash, only maxed out crafters make money off crafting, when most people need the money before level 50 to pay for the overpriced skills and speeder training. I knew having an inquisitor the best crafting skill for me was synthweaving, and with that being true I knew the skills to help those were UT and Arch, which have a profit loss every time. So why should one gathering skill make tons of cash when the others aren't viable till max level?

[Merced]

The fact is the BW has went too far. You are wrong in saying that Slicing is a 100% gathering professions. have you tried slicing. Not all the time people are ready to buy the junk that you get from low level missions.

 

But in actual gathering professions you can sell pretty much what you gather. Whether you gather from nodes or send you companions. We are actually losing money right now from slicing because the nerf has been huge.

 

welcome to every other profession.

[Xontier]

Wow you guys are stupidly shortsighted aren't you? I'll try one last time, but it probably won't get through. All you economic people should understand why this example would be horrible for the game.

 

I have one level 50. Lets say on average I make 100k a day from slicing alone (ignoring money from PvE, PvP, etc that I can make while my companions are running slicing missions)

 

I do this every day for one year.

 

How much money will I have?

 

36,500,000 Credits. From slicing alone. And 100k a day is LOW compared to what a lot of people could do.

 

Now add on any credits I'd make from PvE, PvP, etc.

 

With ONE character.

 

Now imagine how many level 50s there will be in a couple of months.

 

Multiply that by three hundred(easy).

 

Now picture how many 50s there would be after one year.

 

 

That would FORCE everyone in the game to take slicing or some kind of gathering skill to make any kind of money to buy stuff on the GTM. Not everyone wants to bother with those.

 

Inflation happens in every single MMO because money is created out of thin air, where-as in the real world there's a finite amount floating around (for the most part).

 

the slicing nerf, WHICH STILL MAKES MONEY, significantly slows this problem down and brings it in line with every other method of making money.

 

Sure, it might not net the same credits/hour as PvE or PvP or even space missions, but you can do those three WHILE SLICING.

 

If you still can't see the problem, then there's nothing anyone can say that will make you understand why the slicing nerf was a good thing.

 

There would simply be far too much money in the game, and all those skills/speeder training you seem to have so much trouble buying (I personally never had any issue with affording any of my skills all the way to 50, speeders included) wouldn't even make a dent in your pockets when we're talking about that much money from slicing alone on a SINGLE character.

[pyziroki]

welcome to every other profession.

 

Slicing is designed to make money. What is the point to send companions on missions to wait until they come back with minus 300 credits of what you payed for it. You don't even receive anything. When you gather on other missions you receive resources...

@Xontier now If you'd bother to read the 1st post you would understand that the guy receives 200k + credits a day from other crafting professions. Now do your count down and tell me how much money will he have in a year? Aye way more than if he had slicing.

[Xontier]

Slicing is designed to make money. What is the point to send companions on missions to wait until they come back with minus 300 credits of what you payed for it. You don't even receive anything. When you gather on other missions you receive resources...

@Xontier now If you'd bother to read the 1st post you would understand that the guy receives 200k + credits a day from other crafting professions. Now do your count down and tell me how much money will he have in a year? Aye way more than if he had slicing.

 

Slicing does make money. From nodes. Think about that.

 

Edit: Also, if I send my companions out on Bioanlysis missions then try to sell the mats, guess what? I lose money. A lot more than just a couple hundred, too. If I want to make money selling mats, I have to gather from nodes. Slicing is now the same way.

 

Welcome to every other gathering skill.

 

End edit

 

Also, my 100k was low, probably by a large margin.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArCSGLnwZLADdGxYdlhEejBFclBjR3l1N29OaW1kYUE&gid=6

 

I'm taking a lowish Average Credits Per Minute from the PRE-NERF GLORY DAYS of 108. That equates to a single companion netting 6480 credits per hour. Multiply that by 5 and you get about 32k/hour.

 

A mere three hours and you have the 100k. Six and its 200k. And that was a low value of average credits per minute. NOT counting sales from mission criticals.

 

Yes, not everyone can play six or even three hours a day, but there are a large number of people that can easily put in 8+ hours a day in MMOs.

 

Also, you can go ahead and take those numbers and multiply that by the number of 50s on person may have on that server. It would be a trivial task to send my companions out on two or three characters then back to my main and PvP for the duration of the missions.

 

 

At least with crafting you have to dedicate some time into actually turning a profit, rather than being able to read a book and rake in mad amounts of cash.

 

Finally, why do you think the GTM prices were skyrocketing? I watched them climb very, very quickly from day one of EGA. Why? Because everyone had slicing and you could easily have 1+ mil (and that's after buying all abilities AND speeder training) by the time you hit 50. I've known multiple people that did just that when they dinged 50. From slicing alone.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Xontier

[Nirosu]

Uh gathering skills can make money from the missions. I have at least. Just like with slicing the low level missions don't really make money but the higher ones do. Pre-nerf slicing did have advantage largely due to mission times rather than how much it returned. Bioware should have just lowered mission times for the other crew skills imo.

[Buckwildz]

We are making enough money from slicing. I'm 400 slicing and am happy with my returns on bountiful and rich missions plus slicing in the field.

 

What does bother me is getting a green case and having it be less than the mission cost itself. I understand a white box being lower, but green should not be.

Edited December 31, 2011 by Buckwildz

[VioletZero]

Slicing does make money. From nodes. Think about that.

 

Edit: Also, if I send my companions out on Bioanlysis missions then try to sell the mats, guess what? I lose money. A lot more than just a couple hundred, too. If I want to make money selling mats, I have to gather from nodes. Slicing is now the same way.

 

Welcome to every other gathering skill.

 

Playing devil's advocate here...

 

Sending companions out on gathering missions returns what may or may not be worth the money to you. So since while you can't turn Bioanalysis goods into more money, you can turn it into chems. Or give it to a guild mate who can turn it into a chem.

 

It has other uses.

 

Slicing lockboxes do not. They're just money. What you get from lockboxes cannot be used for anything else and it is a straight loss.

 

Which comes into play why slicing and missions do not mesh under the current system.

[Rudest]

I think slicing is meant for people who don't want to craft or for alts. I think coupled with Scavenging you would have a rather decent income selling the mats and slicing. If you wanted to reinvest your money into underworld trading or investigation for a mission skill, or even take up another gather skill, you could do so and still be fine.

 

If slicing had been left untouched?

 

Coming from Anarchy Online, where people were dropping several million credit tips for buffs? Do you really want that? Yeah you don't want inflation to happen. It'll make things hard for you, but impossible for people who are new to the game to compete should they join the games later years.

 

It's incredibly short sighted and juvenile to want "NOW NOW NOW" credits. Reinvest into a craft. Profit. Do something valuable for yourself and your guild. More importantly, for the games health and longevity.

[Zennshi]

Wow you guys are stupidly shortsighted aren't you? I'll try one last time, but it probably won't get through. All you economic people should understand why this example would be horrible for the game.

 

I have one level 50. Lets say on average I make 100k a day from slicing alone (ignoring money from PvE, PvP, etc that I can make while my companions are running slicing missions)

 

I do this every day for one year.

 

How much money will I have?

 

36,500,000 Credits. From slicing alone. And 100k a day is LOW compared to what a lot of people could do.

 

Now add on any credits I'd make from PvE, PvP, etc.

 

With ONE character.

 

Now imagine how many level 50s there will be in a couple of months.

 

Multiply that by three hundred(easy).

 

Now picture how many 50s there would be after one year.

 

 

That would FORCE everyone in the game to take slicing or some kind of gathering skill to make any kind of money to buy stuff on the GTM. Not everyone wants to bother with those.

 

Inflation happens in every single MMO because money is created out of thin air, where-as in the real world there's a finite amount floating around (for the most part).

 

the slicing nerf, WHICH STILL MAKES MONEY, significantly slows this problem down and brings it in line with every other method of making money.

 

Sure, it might not net the same credits/hour as PvE or PvP or even space missions, but you can do those three WHILE SLICING.

 

If you still can't see the problem, then there's nothing anyone can say that will make you understand why the slicing nerf was a good thing.

 

There would simply be far too much money in the game, and all those skills/speeder training you seem to have so much trouble buying (I personally never had any issue with affording any of my skills all the way to 50, speeders included) wouldn't even make a dent in your pockets when we're talking about that much money from slicing alone on a SINGLE character.

 

You didn't say anything besides throw out some numbers and set up a situation.

 

You obviously don't grasp economics well enough to explain the long term effects apparently, please stop trying.

[Zennshi]

Slicing does make money. From nodes. Think about that.

 

Edit: Also, if I send my companions out on Bioanlysis missions then try to sell the mats, guess what? I lose money. A lot more than just a couple hundred, too. If I want to make money selling mats, I have to gather from nodes. Slicing is now the same way.

 

Welcome to every other gathering skill.

 

End edit

 

Also, my 100k was low, probably by a large margin.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0ArCSGLnwZLADdGxYdlhEejBFclBjR3l1N29OaW1kYUE&gid=6

 

I'm taking a lowish Average Credits Per Minute from the PRE-NERF GLORY DAYS of 108. That equates to a single companion netting 6480 credits per hour. Multiply that by 5 and you get about 32k/hour.

 

A mere three hours and you have the 100k. Six and its 200k. And that was a low value of average credits per minute. NOT counting sales from mission criticals.

 

Yes, not everyone can play six or even three hours a day, but there are a large number of people that can easily put in 8+ hours a day in MMOs.

 

Also, you can go ahead and take those numbers and multiply that by the number of 50s on person may have on that server. It would be a trivial task to send my companions out on two or three characters then back to my main and PvP for the duration of the missions.

 

 

At least with crafting you have to dedicate some time into actually turning a profit, rather than being able to read a book and rake in mad amounts of cash.

 

Finally, why do you think the GTM prices were skyrocketing? I watched them climb very, very quickly from day one of EGA. Why? Because everyone had slicing and you could easily have 1+ mil (and that's after buying all abilities AND speeder training) by the time you hit 50. I've known multiple people that did just that when they dinged 50. From slicing alone.

 

*Blink*

 

Your argument is that level 50s with lots of free time make money?................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. I really don't know what to say to you besides LOL

 

 

Why not mention the gold sinks you have up to level 50?

 

 

You really aren't looking at the big picture, you are looking at things from a purely profit standpoint and are completely ignoring everything else.

 

Talk about some major FUD and jealousy being thrown out there!

 

On that note too, why are skyrocketing prices a bad thing? Because as long as you are a crafter and selling, aren't you making money? Or are you jealous because you don't use the auction house and can't afford anything? Isn't that you not being smart rather than slicing needing to be nerfed? So prices can stay cheap for you because you don't feel like making money?

Edited January 1, 2012 by Zennshi