Crafting and PTS

[Grymmjow]

Biochem is similarly absurd. With the exception of grade 11 implants, the stuff Biochem can make are all testable on the PTS, but where the grade 10s took a dozen mats, the grade 11s take hundreds, and where the grade 10s took less than 4 dozen, the grade 11s take a couple thousand, millions of credits, and hours to make if the cell grafts aren't already stocked. A measly stack of 4 purple Kyrprax medpacs requires about 1.1 million credits or so worth of materials and about an hour of craft time start to finish.

 

About the only grade 11 thing cheap enough to make is the green Kyrprax medpac, and last I checked, that medpac could be purchased from a med droid for less than the cost for a player to make.

 

To top it off, the grade 10 Biochem consumables can do 90% of what the grade 11s can do, 10 times cheaper. So, in terms of price-performance, we should be sticking with the grade 10s at least until the exotic mats required for them run out of stock.

 

From the list of things that 6.0 brings to crafting, I can see two grade 11 items worth the hassle: augmentation kits and augments. Everything else is stuff only the rich can afford but only the impatient or foolish would spend time and credits on.

 

Yep I came to this conclusion also with Biochem. It isn't worth the effort. This crafting they're going for is terrible. I'm pretty sure most people don't agree with direction they're going as well as myself.

[phalczen]

I think your response is what they are looking for. If they wanted people to be able to actually use crafting to benefit their gear progression, they would make the system that allowed for it. Instead, they have made a system that intentionally limits our ability to craft our way to better gear.

 

I'm pretty sure that feedback like yours is what they hoped for, and helps them to feel like they are on the right track.

 

The lesson that I learn from this is that we need to save our mats to make augments and augment kits, and we need to have most of our characters specked into biochem so that we can craft reusable stims, med packs and adrenals.

 

The sarcasm is strong with this one.

 

But seriously, this post hints at the question I have, which is, "Do the developers believe that the ability to craft just below starting endgame gear was broken? That the ability to easily craft gear that is at least two item ratings below the start, and, on average since pretty much the start of the game, 10-40 item ratings lower than top end gear, is and has been broken design and therefore screams out, 'Nerf me!'?"

 

Also, please fix the missing set boni from the DvL armor, missing locked Alliance Supply Crates, missing datacron decorations, missing Conquered Exarch bracers, missing weapon tuning slots ...

[Benirons]

Dude..... costs way more but u also get (some) more.

 

This is absolutely asinine. Y do u have to inflate mats and schematic requirements so much? Just keep it the same as usual.

 

Ur first step should have been to drop a zero from all requirements, including jawa junk. Currently it is 6 for 1 for grade 10, 10 for 1 with more sources of jawa junk is still reasonable.

 

Ur second step should have been to drop the rare mats from greens and blues, maybe even purples and just keep them for legendaries.

 

I refuse to believe that the dev team is this stupid. Whoever is telling u guys to do this none-sense, give that greedy guy a big slap on the face so they can wake the hell up.

[ytrenor]

That was intentional. To accommodate the devs wanting costs being higher than previous grades, I suggest to bump the green ACs to 12/12/12, then halve for blue, then halve again for purp. Then add that to the suggestion that the blue ACs would require fewer green ACs, and purp ACs would require fewer blue ACs, which would end up being less mats overall.

 

I'd still prefer 2/2/2, but I honestly don't think they'll do that even though many people are pushing for it.

 

I'm not good at negociation, but I believe what the devs did is to set an anchor. They've set an unreasonable amount, and then the players start bargaining from that price, instead of the 2/2/2 we should expect from green Assembly Components.

 

I understand the crafting from Ossus might be responsible for the insanity, but at the same time, these (Ossus gear) are not green or blue crafting gear, and these should not set the norm.

[Damask_Rose]

Hey folks,

 

One of the things we have seen a lot of questions and feedback on is crafting. Fear not as you (crafters) have not been forgotten and there are changes coming. Here are the things we were hearing, and what we are doing about them..

 

Keep the feedback coming! These changes are not live yet on PTS but I will let you know when we release a patch where they are available. Thanks!

 

-eric

 

Can you please, please tell us you are going to remove conquest and other rare mats from green MK-0 gear? It should not take weeks of conquest to make one piece of green gear that is lower than the lowest new gear you can loot from a trash mobs. Do you expect crafters to take years before they can craft anything that anyone would actually use?

[Lhancelot]

Can you please, please tell us you are going to remove conquest and other rare mats from green MK-0 gear? It should not take weeks of conquest to make one piece of green gear that is lower than the lowest new gear you can loot from a trash mobs. Do you expect crafters to take years before they can craft anything that anyone would actually use?

 

Can we get an answer from a BW representative on this? Unless I missed it, there's been no real communication back to the players who express concern about the crafting.

[TerraStomper]

Can we get an answer from a BW representative on this? Unless I missed it, there's been no real communication back to the players who express concern about the crafting.

 

I would like to hear their rationale as well. Most grade 11 crafting is constrained by the weekly Conquest clock. It is a very slow, expensive, and time consuming path. Patience is required.

 

Still, it does appear that they are reading our feedback. The number of artifact solid resource matrices required for the blue level 73 rank 276 augments have been lowered from 10 to 5. A crafter completing 50,000 personal conquest in a guild that completes the 5,000,000 point large yield goal each week will collect enough SRMs to make 14 blue augments in 12 weeks, assuming no critical successes. That is better than the half a calendar year it would have taken before. The crafter also hasn't tried reverse engineering those augments to learn the purple rank 286 versions yet.

 

Solo crafters: ouch. Crafting 14 augments will still take 35 weeks instead of 70 (2 SRMs per week instead of 6.)

 

The crafter has four options for speeding up acquisition of SRMs:

1. Being in an active guild that meets their conquest goal each week (collective grind)
   
2. Pushing more alts to personal conquest each week (personal grind)
   
3. Receiving SRM donations from other players (generosity)
   
4. Buying and selling SRMs and augments on the GTN (redistributed wealth)
   

 

The benefit of being in an active guild that meets its conquest goals every week are strong. Small active guilds can double SRM acquisition. Medium active guilds can increase SRM acquisition 2.5 times. Large active guilds, 3 times.

Edited October 6, 2019 by TerraStomper

[Hawkebatt]

There is no bargaining as crafting was not broken before and it is destroyed now.

 

Revert to 2/2/2 green for green blue for blue and purple for purple.

 

Remove conquest mats from trash recipes.

 

Remove MK 11 from war supplies

 

There is no compromise in this. Either bring it in line with the rest of crafting or remove crafting all together.

[JainiaDral]

I was just looking at the startup costs for even getting your toons cleared for Onslaught crafting. It's 500K credits per crafting skill, including gathering and missions.

 

So, 1.5 million credits per toon just as a starting cost. That makes it a no-go out of the gate. With 19 alts on Satele Shan right now, that's 28.5 million credits if I want to unlock all my gatherers and crafters. It's almost half of what I have banked, and is almost everything I've been grinding for the past three weeks as prep for the expansion. There's no way I'd be able to afford to actually craft once I've unlocked the ability.

 

That's just insane.

Edited October 7, 2019 by JainiaDral

[Darev]

I was just looking at the startup costs for even getting your toons cleared for Onslaught crafting. It's 500K credits per crafting skill, including gathering and missions.

 

So, 1.5 million credits per toon just as a starting cost. That makes it a no-go out of the gate. With 19 alts on Satele Shan right now, that's 28.5 million credits if I want to unlock all my gatherers and crafters. It's almost half of what I have banked, and is almost everything I've been grinding for the past three weeks as prep for the expansion. There's no way I'd be able to afford to actually craft once I've unlocked the ability.

 

That's just insane.

 

Every expansion the costs have gone up. I have a crap ton of alts too, I only plan on doing crafting on the toons that have the most saved legacy orange shell schematics. No need, for me, to have 5 armormech toons.

 

Scavenging / UT / all the other "gathering" skills on the other hand...yes...those will add up fast.

 

4 - 6 rounds of daily/weeklies will pay for two skills though. Almost 100k for just cz-198

[TrixxieTriss]

Unless there are some fundamental changes before 6.0 goes live, because pts 3 is the last iteration, then crafting will be dead to me. I just won’t bother.

 

It’s just another strike on the board and when there are too many strikes, you stop playing your way and start being funnelled into playing one way. At that point you stop playing if that’s not how you want to play the game.

 

As we’ve been testing this expansion, I think most us have inadvertently proved how much the “play your way” slogan for 6.0 is a lie or massive con.

 

Yes, Bioware have listened, yes changes have been made, but all the fundamentals that are the problems to start with haven’t been changed, just tweaked to make them go from extremely terrible to bad or still terrible.

It’s the fundamental ideas behind a lot of the changes that are the problem. If they aren’t willing to address those, I’m really, really sorry to say this, but all they are doing is dressing up dog **** so it doesn’t smell as bad.

 

Are there some good things? Yep, for sure there are. But they are being completely over shadowed by the bad. It’s like building a beautiful garden and then surrounding it with an ugly work factory with dirty windows. You won’t see the beauty of the garden and you’ll be too busy trudging through an exhaustive RNG job for your pay cheque that may not even be as good as the one you go last time. It’s a shame that the good will be overshadowed and probably be forgotten.

 

In the end, you just find another game that is fun and also allows you to see the beauty and ingenious of the designers.

[JainiaDral]

Every expansion the costs have gone up. I have a crap ton of alts too, I only plan on doing crafting on the toons that have the most saved legacy orange shell schematics. No need, for me, to have 5 armormech toons.

 

Scavenging / UT / all the other "gathering" skills on the other hand...yes...those will add up fast.

 

4 - 6 rounds of daily/weeklies will pay for two skills though. Almost 100k for just cz-198

 

I've got one of each major type of crafter and a bunch of pure gatherers. I guess, as a solo casual schlub, crafting isn't for me anymore I've ground out CZ-198 and dailies on so many alts for the last few weeks that my eyes are bleeding. If I have to do any of them one more time, I'll jump off the Golden Gate.

 

If I'm going to shell out a major chunk of change, there has to be at least a one-for-one return on the investment. With everything I'm reading, I'm not seeing that possibility at all. I can't craft any worthwhile gear. What I'd be able to craft takes boatloads of conquest mats, and I don't care enough about housing to dump kajillions of credits into it to get enough of a bonus to have a prayer of finishing Conquest on even one toon. My PTS bonus of 4% isn't far off my live bonus of 10%.

 

The whole thing seems like a titanic waste of time.

 

That said, kudos to Bioware for implementing the equivalent of ESO's craft bag. Every MMO should follow suit.

Edited October 7, 2019 by JainiaDral

[phalczen]

Still, it does appear that they are reading our feedback. The number of artifact solid resource matrices required for the blue level 73 rank 276 augments have been lowered from 10 to 5.

 

I, for one, do not think that a gear item that used to be bread and butter sales for crafters, to give players starting in end game content an edge, should require a material whose acquisition time is on the order of weeks. Blue starter tier augments should not require exotic materials to make. As I've said before green gear should never require an exotic material. Especially if the RE chance is so low and the artifact/legendary versions are going to require exotics.

[JediBoadicea]

I keep trying to work out in my mind what the devs' rationale might be for the absolute insanity that is 6.0 crafting. I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, because I love this game. But man, in this case, it's really hard.

 

Are they trying to limit the abuse of crafting to earn conquest points? If so, the answer is to lessen the amount of conquest points that crafting gives or the objectives available for it, not to make crafting harder. You don't balance conquest by hurting crafters, because those are not two universally overlapping groups of players.

 

Are they trying to prevent crafting from being the preferred method of end game gearing? If so, then they are forgetting that the only time in the whole history of the game that crafting has been able to provide BIS gear was with Ossus/Jedi Under Siege. They do not need to destroy seven years' worth of crafting history and design to step away from a single and recent instance of change; the correct response is to simply not create a means that allows crafters to craft BIS (just a couple levels below BIS, as has been normal).

 

Are they trying to correct for economy inflation? If so, and if they honestly think that crafting has broken the economy, I don't even know what to say. The only place in which crafting has played a role in inflation is in the demand for the mats. That means that the problem, insofar as a connection between inflation and crafting even exists, lies in the methods by which mats may be obtained and circulated, not in what crafters ultimately do with them.

 

Are they trying to artificially slow us down, to force us to spend more time with the game before we max out crafting? If so, they took it way, way, way, way too far. People in this thread and the previous crafting thread did the math to point out that it will take months for people to craft a single full set of augments for one character.

 

Crafting is a mini-game within the game. There is absolutely nothing in the game that is broken that can "balanced" on the back of crafting. If they release this to live, they are going to get an outcry. 3-4 months later, they will have tweaked it back down to something reasonable to avoid drowning in the sea of salt, but by then they'll have burned away 3-4 months of goodwill. This makes me genuinely sad, because I love this game, I recognize the devs work hard, and I want it to succeed. I just don't understand why they are so stubbornly ignoring the core of all the feedback we are providing.

 

A measly stack of 6 purple Kyrprax medpacs requires about 1.1 million credits or so worth of materials and about an hour of craft time start to finish.

 

Dozens and dozens of great examples have been provided by people offering feedback, but I think the above boils it down well to show the sheer absurdity of things. How does this make any sense whatsoever? Why would anyone even bother with crafting? I have been crafting since day one of this game (a subscriber since beta), and if 6.0 goes live as is I simply won't even bother.

 

Devs, if you are looking to create credit sinks, you don't do it on the back of a game mechanic. You do it by creating more items like the gold-glow reward you get for paying the ransom on Dantooine; you do it by creating cosmetics that are cool enough to be desirable and gating them behind some rep somewhere (for game investment) and credit prices in the range of 25-100 million. People with oodles of credits can pay that without blinking, and people who don't have oodles of credits might be able to actually save up to a target of 25. Pull credits out of the economy on FLUFF, not by gating off methods of play.

 

I was just looking at the startup costs for even getting your toons cleared for Onslaught crafting. It's 500K credits per crafting skill, including gathering and missions.

 

So, 1.5 million credits per toon just as a starting cost.

 

I hadn't actually paid any attention to that. That will definitely add up across my army of alts. I don't think this is a game breaker but it wouldn't hurt to make it a little bit more reasonable. Again, you don't balance the economy on the back of crafting, that's just absurd.

 

Would you think "Let's counter inflation and create extra difficulty by charging people a credits cost to queue for Warzones"??? No, NEVER, because that's CRAZY. Making crafting astronomically more expensive to do is the equivalent of that, and it is equally absurd and unfair. I'm just pulling this out of thin air, but I'd be willing to bet that more people profit off of Warzones (selling the mats they get as rewards) than probably the whole of the crafting community combined.

 

There is no bargaining as crafting was not broken before and it is destroyed now.

 

Revert to 2/2/2 green for green blue for blue and purple for purple.

 

Remove conquest mats from trash recipes.

 

Remove MK 11 from war supplies

 

There is no compromise in this.

 

All of the above, yes, which is in a nutshell what almost everyone has been saying.

 

The fact that they've reduced the amount of blue and purple conquest mats required to make entry level greens does less than nothing to assuage me, because as has been stated ad nauseum the amount of blue and purple mats that should be required to make entry level green items is ZERO. Green for greens. Blue for blues. Purple for purples.

 

I can run Hammer Station in 10-30 minutes depending on my group. In one run of Hammer Station, I can walk away with 6-15 pieces of gear that will at worst be 270, and depending on what my current gear rating is may be exponentially better than that.

 

Why in the world would anyone, ever, under any circumstances, put in dozens and dozens of hours and a month's worth of conquest grinding/waiting to craft ONE 270 item that one could possibly get TEN of in the course of 30 minutes? That is beyond broken.

 

The fact that it's a stepping stone to crafting better things does not improve it at all, because the rate at which one can continue to acquire gear via drops will forever outstrip the insanity that is current 6.0 crafting. Crafting shouldn't be gated until it has reached the point where it is on par with and competing for BIS quality; that's the point at which recipes should require weeks' worth of grind.

[LeMage]

Unless there are some fundamental changes before 6.0 goes live, because pts 3 is the last iteration, then crafting will be dead to me. I just won’t bother....

 

In the end, you just find another game that is fun and also allows you to see the beauty and ingenious of the designers.

 

I've only crafted lately to make war supplies or some such, I did craft last to get all my other chars up to 600, but even the present was getting to be a diminishing returns game. Now I'll probably not bother either.

 

Finding another 'good' game is getting as hard as crafting will be in 6.0. A game is supposed to be a source of fun, accomplishment, relaxation (well some parts not) and socializing; its not supposed to be more onerous than work in RL.

[phalczen]

Are they trying to prevent crafting from being the preferred method of end game gearing? If so, then they are forgetting that the only time in the whole history of the game that crafting has been able to provide BIS gear was with Ossus/Jedi Under Siege. They do not need to destroy seven years' worth of crafting history and design to step away from a single and recent instance of change; the correct response is to simply not create a means that allows crafters to craft BIS (just a couple levels below BIS, as has been normal).

 

I can only speculate, but it seems like the Developers must think that if crafted gear falls somewhere in the middle of rating 270 to rating 306 in terms of quality, in particular item modifications including augments, then all the Developer's hard work in making the Spoils of War system, and the progression from 270 to 306, will be invalidated.

 

I disagree. Certainly with green 277 item modifications, a player using them is skipping seven levels out of 36 ... hardly a game changer. Even blues aren't that big a deal, although I can't even craft greens right now so its a moot point. Those two item rating/quality levels should not be gated behind exotic materials.

 

But beyond that, even if crafted item modifications at the gold legendary quality were over rating 300, there are going to be people who simply have no interest in paying those prices. I honestly would expect artifact and above would involve some exotics simply because that's the paradigm gear has now in Galactic Command. And similarly, use of those materials will incur steep premiums. Some people will pay those prices, others will be incentivized to do the content that awards the materials and make the stuff themselves, others will work within their guild to craft the stuff, and others will just keep grinding away at the SoW system. It's hardly invalidated, especially since at launch there doesn't appear to be any crafted tactical items or set bonus shells.

 

Isn't that what "Playing Your Way" is all about?

[Estelindis]

Are they trying to prevent crafting from being the preferred method of end game gearing? If so, then they are forgetting that the only time in the whole history of the game that crafting has been able to provide BIS gear was with Ossus/Jedi Under Siege. They do not need to destroy seven years' worth of crafting history and design to step away from a single and recent instance of change; the correct response is to simply not create a means that allows crafters to craft BIS (just a couple levels below BIS, as has been normal).

Completely agree. I don't see why crafting can't move back in the direction of more cosmetic items that don't have the potential to skew game balance. So far I have only seen one (1!) new outfit appearance, shared between synthweaving and armormech. The cost is high in rare materials, and the stats aren't even that good. I'd much prefer if they gave us more looks to craft and have some of them be empty shells. I've done lots of Underworld Trading missions and not found any schematics at all on crits (continuing a trend from the last couple of ranks of crafting; why did they stop adding schematics from UT?).

 

For the record, I am not opposed to crafting being able to create BiS - at great expense. But why not also give it some much cheaper stuff that's not BiS, that might not have any stats at all? Stuff that's just fun? Why should everything be about the gear grind?

Edited October 7, 2019 by Estelindis

[Balameb]

Unless there are some fundamental changes before 6.0 goes live, because pts 3 is the last iteration, then crafting will be dead to me. I just won’t bother.

 

It’s just another strike on the board and when there are too many strikes, you stop playing your way and start being funnelled into playing one way. At that point you stop playing if that’s not how you want to play the game.

 

As we’ve been testing this expansion, I think most us have inadvertently proved how much the “play your way” slogan for 6.0 is a lie or massive con.

 

Yes, Bioware have listened, yes changes have been made, but all the fundamentals that are the problems to start with haven’t been changed, just tweaked to make them go from extremely terrible to bad or still terrible.

It’s the fundamental ideas behind a lot of the changes that are the problem. If they aren’t willing to address those, I’m really, really sorry to say this, but all they are doing is dressing up dog **** so it doesn’t smell as bad.

 

Are there some good things? Yep, for sure there are. But they are being completely over shadowed by the bad. It’s like building a beautiful garden and then surrounding it with an ugly work factory with dirty windows. You won’t see the beauty of the garden and you’ll be too busy trudging through an exhaustive RNG job for your pay cheque that may not even be as good as the one you go last time. It’s a shame that the good will be overshadowed and probably be forgotten.

 

In the end, you just find another game that is fun and also allows you to see the beauty and ingenious of the designers.

I completely agree with this. But sadly in my personal case for crafting, it will be the final nail in the coffin. After playing the new story and content i won't have much reason to stay. Gearing will not be fun, be it short or long will not be fun. The horizontal part is also crap; their "Day in life..." articles are a mockery of the feedback they have been given from players for months. There is no very needed changes in conquest. Crafting was my last hope, they are not making real changes and are not even talking to us. Their whole attitude in the matter pisses me off. I unsubbed already, i have time to play until end of the month that should be fine for story on a couple toons if there are no delays in launch.

I really hope they reconsider and put a PTS 3.5/4.0 to test and shape crafting into at least a functional system.

[Lhancelot]

Are they trying to limit the abuse of crafting to earn conquest points? If so, the answer is to lessen the amount of conquest points that crafting gives or the objectives available for it, not to make crafting harder. You don't balance conquest by hurting crafters, because those are not two universally overlapping groups of players.

Are they trying to prevent crafting from being the preferred method of end game gearing? If so, then they are forgetting that the only time in the whole history of the game that crafting has been able to provide BIS gear was with Ossus/Jedi Under Siege. They do not need to destroy seven years' worth of crafting history and design to step away from a single and recent instance of change; the correct response is to simply not create a means that allows crafters to craft BIS (just a couple levels below BIS, as has been normal).

Are they trying to correct for economy inflation? If so, and if they honestly think that crafting has broken the economy, I don't even know what to say. The only place in which crafting has played a role in inflation is in the demand for the mats. That means that the problem, insofar as a connection between inflation and crafting even exists, lies in the methods by which mats may be obtained and circulated, not in what crafters ultimately do with them.

 

Are they trying to artificially slow us down, to force us to spend more time with the game before we max out crafting? If so, they took it way, way, way, way too far. People in this thread and the previous crafting thread did the math to point out that it will take months for people to craft a single full set of augments for one character.

 

Crafting is a mini-game within the game. There is absolutely nothing in the game that is broken that can "balanced" on the back of crafting. If they release this to live, they are going to get an outcry. 3-4 months later, they will have tweaked it back down to something reasonable to avoid drowning in the sea of salt, but by then they'll have burned away 3-4 months of goodwill. This makes me genuinely sad, because I love this game, I recognize the devs work hard, and I want it to succeed. I just don't understand why they are so stubbornly ignoring the core of all the feedback we are providing.

 

Why in the world would anyone, ever, under any circumstances, put in dozens and dozens of hours and a month's worth of conquest grinding/waiting to craft ONE 270 item that one could possibly get TEN of in the course of 30 minutes? That is beyond broken.

The fact that it's a stepping stone to crafting better things does not improve it at all, because the rate at which one can continue to acquire gear via drops will forever outstrip the insanity that is current 6.0 crafting. Crafting shouldn't be gated until it has reached the point where it is on par with and competing for BIS quality; that's the point at which recipes should require weeks' worth of grind.

 

One thing that's frustrating is when BW makes changes and give no explanation behind the changes... Again... fixing things that aint broken. I think your questions are really good ones it's clear you put a lot of thought into the potential crafting changes and how they can impact the game as they stand now.

 

As a solo player who loves crafting on MMOs, I really hope they don't break crafting and make it an impossible activity for solo players. It's still good enough for players like me to enjoy it, whether I am making upgrades with rare mats, or crafting to sell to other players for credits.

 

I think the devs main purpose for all the grinding is the fact they aren't giving a lot of content to spend time grinding through, so instead they are turning everything into a really heavy grind regarding any progression whether it's crafting or gearing. Hence the overabundance of RNG everywhere, it's just another tool to make the grind that much time consuming.

 

Hopefully over the course of the next couple weeks, people like you continue to share your feedback on the forums and with Eric and the devs. The game only has a chance to be made better when posts like yours are shared with solid reasoning behind your concerns. It's clear you don't have a axe to grind with BW, so hopefully Eric takes the time to read your post and reflect on it with the devs, these are great points you made.

 

 

in my personal case for crafting, it will be the final nail in the coffin. After playing the new story and content i won't have much reason to stay. There is no very needed changes in conquest. Crafting was my last hope, they are not making real changes and are not even talking to us. Their whole attitude in the matter pisses me off.

 

The changes to conquest over the years are baffling and the lack of transparency about the changes to conquest over the last few years is what really irks me, and I am not even a conquest driven player on SWTOR.

 

I hated the changes not because they affected my gaming directly but because there really were a lot of players who enjoyed conquest far more than I ever realized before they made it alt-unfriendly, and by turning these players off the game has suffered.

 

The most annoying part was when they explained the changes as a way to make smaller guilds compete with the larger guilds, and instead of doing that the changes actually made it even worse for smaller guilds to compete.

 

This means either BW didn't understand their own changes and how they'd affect conquest, or they are blatantly lying about why they changed conquest. Either way, this was handled poorly and conquest was gutted and made a far less enjoyable activity in the game after they changed it.

Edited October 7, 2019 by Lhancelot

[IslanderRebel]

All I want to know is who the genuis is or genuises are who thought up the great idea a piece of GREEN 277 armoring needs 20 refined Isotopes to craft?

Also, love the war supplies changes for attachments or cells.

Gotta make use of the new grade 11 mats somehow.

And this maintenance I hope fixes the Slicing nodes on Onderon?

I need to be reimbursed for all the grade 11 slicing nodes that didn't give me one credit at all.

I'll settle for 5 billion my great awesome DEVS.

[Transcendent]

Jawa Junk Prices

We hear your concerns that in general Jawa Junk prices are too high. They definitely are higher on PTS than they are on live, but remember that players will be receiving far more Jawa Junk than they do today due to deconstruction. We are not ready to make changes here just yet but we are keeping an eye on your feedback and data around Jawa Junk gains. We will absolutely make changes if it is an issue so keep playing and keep sharing feedback.

 

Currently my playstyle only ever really rewards me from Jawa Junk in terms of the Conquest weekly, I rarely deconstruct anything (I don't generally earn many CXP crates due to the low rate for the type of playstyle I run). Most of my time is spent crafting or gathering, occasionally running a weekly or heroic here and there.

 

If the combination of Conquest weekly points goes up above 15k, as well as vendor prices for Jawa Junk items, does this mean I'll no longer be receiving Jawa Junk at all?

[ElZaguero]

Unless there are some fundamental changes before 6.0 goes live, because pts 3 is the last iteration, then crafting will be dead to me. I just won’t bother.

 

It’s just another strike on the board and when there are too many strikes, you stop playing your way and start being funnelled into playing one way. At that point you stop playing if that’s not how you want to play the game.

 

As we’ve been testing this expansion, I think most us have inadvertently proved how much the “play your way” slogan for 6.0 is a lie or massive con.

 

Yes, Bioware have listened, yes changes have been made, but all the fundamentals that are the problems to start with haven’t been changed, just tweaked to make them go from extremely terrible to bad or still terrible.

It’s the fundamental ideas behind a lot of the changes that are the problem. If they aren’t willing to address those, I’m really, really sorry to say this, but all they are doing is dressing up dog **** so it doesn’t smell as bad.

 

Are there some good things? Yep, for sure there are. But they are being completely over shadowed by the bad. It’s like building a beautiful garden and then surrounding it with an ugly work factory with dirty windows. You won’t see the beauty of the garden and you’ll be too busy trudging through an exhaustive RNG job for your pay cheque that may not even be as good as the one you go last time. It’s a shame that the good will be overshadowed and probably be forgotten.

 

In the end, you just find another game that is fun and also allows you to see the beauty and ingenious of the designers.

 

Triss, do not misunderstand what I'm about to say. I am not criticising you, I am praising you.

 

I teach EFL online, and Mondays are very slow, so I have had time to read back through a lot of old posts in various threads in these PTS forums. And in late September, you were so upbeat, so patient with the devs, so understanding, and I thought to myself, "OMG this person has the patience of a saint!"

 

And then with this post you seem like, "FINE! I have turned the other cheek, I have walked the extra mile, and now my patience is done!" And I am like, ahhh, so even the patience of a saint has limits...

 

Me, I'm the opposite. I am pessimistic and negative from the get-go. At the defense contractor where I used to work, we said there are 6 stages to a project -

Enthusiasm

Disillusionment

Panic

Search for the guilty

Punishment of the innocent

Rewards for the uninvolved

 

I have no idea to what extent these 6 stages apply to game development, if at all, but I do feel sorry for the BW codemonkeys at this stage. The pressure has got to be intense. In any case, my guess is that what we are seeing on PTS right now is more or less what we will be getting at launch. In the Navy they say BOHICA

[Banthabreeder]

Unless there are some fundamental changes before 6.0 goes live, because pts 3 is the last iteration, then crafting will be dead to me. I just won’t bother.

 

It’s just another strike on the board and when there are too many strikes, you stop playing your way and start being funnelled into playing one way. At that point you stop playing if that’s not how you want to play the game.

 

As we’ve been testing this expansion, I think most us have inadvertently proved how much the “play your way” slogan for 6.0 is a lie or massive con.

 

Yes, Bioware have listened, yes changes have been made, but all the fundamentals that are the problems to start with haven’t been changed, just tweaked to make them go from extremely terrible to bad or still terrible.

It’s the fundamental ideas behind a lot of the changes that are the problem. If they aren’t willing to address those, I’m really, really sorry to say this, but all they are doing is dressing up dog **** so it doesn’t smell as bad.

 

Are there some good things? Yep, for sure there are. But they are being completely over shadowed by the bad. It’s like building a beautiful garden and then surrounding it with an ugly work factory with dirty windows. You won’t see the beauty of the garden and you’ll be too busy trudging through an exhaustive RNG job for your pay cheque that may not even be as good as the one you go last time. It’s a shame that the good will be overshadowed and probably be forgotten.

 

In the end, you just find another game that is fun and also allows you to see the beauty and ingenious of the designers.

 

Trixxie,

 

When I read what you typed you expressed exactly how I feel now. It was sorta sad knowing how much hard work you have put in testing 6.0 (yes, i've read all your posts) that now you feel disillusioned and saddened.

 

I have given up testing 6.0 myself. I feel with all the input I've provided before (miniscule compared to yours), it didn't matter and was ignored. I still see a ton of bugs that all of us have reported since day one that haven't been fixed. New things are broken that used to work. The devs think of us as whiny fanboys/girls not getting what we want. What they fail to realize is what we want or don't want (RNG on steroids) is how the majority feels. Being a tester, we are their voices. But we can't force them to hear us. They live in their little bubble and we get whatever pops out of it.

 

Sure I've suggested a few things that I personally would like to be added or changed in the game, but they would be things everyone one enjoy or benefit from. All my suggestions were ignored. So if all the bugs I found and all the suggestions I come up with are ignored or dismissed, why should I keep testinging only to bang my head against the wall?

 

The game will come out, they will hear how upset everyone is then (not just the testers) and either ignore their complaints or maybe finally change it. Who knows? I'm done testing. Did all I can do and so have you. I know I'm in not position to thank your or congratulate you on doing such an incredible job in testing 6.0 but I noticed. I noticed. That's the best I can do for ya.

[Beyrahl]

Acquisition and mission time still seems pretty bad.

 

However another note is that diplomacy is giving dark alignment even though it advertises light.

[Estelindis]

However another note is that diplomacy is giving dark alignment even though it advertises light.

Hasn't this always been an issue with diplomacy since they added DvL alignment points to all crew missions? The new icons override the old diplomacy alignment icons.