Crafting updates?

[Krymac]

I'd just like to know, as I'm sure many others do also, when are we going to be able to craft relevant and unique gear again?

[Nee-Elder]

On 1/27/2023 at 9:26 AM, Krymac said:

I'd just like to know, as I'm sure many others do also, when are we going to be able to craft relevant and unique gear again?

There's a rumor going around that BioWare is planning some type of  "crafting revamp"  ( whatever that means )  soon with 7.3 or 7.4

But who knows?

i come from SWG, which had the best most beautifully complex & dynamic  PLAYER crafting system in history of MMO's ( in my opinion ) , so even if BioWare did everything i wanted in my forum sig below , i still wouldn't  enjoy SWTOR  "crafting"  ( aka Crew Skill slave slog boring clickfest ) as much as i did SWG's .

Edited May 4, 2023 by Nee-Elder
Reason: the rumor didn't come true ( at least, not for 7.3 ) -- UGH BIOWARE WHY?!?!!?

[SteveTheCynic]

3 hours ago, Krymac said:

I'd just like to know, as I'm sure many others do also, when are we going to be able to craft relevant and unique gear again?

Define "relevant" and "unique" in the context of crafting?  (I still have a character who can craft the Annihilator V assault cannon(1) that hasn't been relevant since at least as long ago as 2015, and poor Kylath *surely* isn't unique in that, but it's still a bit special since the schematic has been impossible to acquire since 4.0 was released.)

(1) It is Requires-level-48 and came with pre-installed 120-rated blue modifications that were better than the contemporary requires-level-50 blue modifications when I first acquired the schematic.

[Krymac]

On 1/27/2023 at 2:10 PM, SteveTheCynic said:

Define "relevant" and "unique" in the context of crafting?  (I still have a character who can craft the Annihilator V assault cannon(1) that hasn't been relevant since at least as long ago as 2015, and poor Kylath *surely* isn't unique in that, but it's still a bit special since the schematic has been impossible to acquire since 4.0 was released.)

(1) It is Requires-level-48 and came with pre-installed 120-rated blue modifications that were better than the contemporary requires-level-50 blue modifications when I first acquired the schematic.

Hey Steve,

 

by "relevant" I meant up to par with current max gear rating. By 'unique" I meant only obtainable by crafting.

I have a few recipes no longer dropped also. Brings back memories.

 

[Krymac]

On 1/27/2023 at 11:42 AM, Nee-Elder said:

There's a rumor going around that BioWare is planning some type of  "crafting revamp"  ( whatever that means )  soon with 7.3 or 7.4

But who knows?

i come from SWG, which had the best most beautifully complex & dynamic  PLAYER crafting system in history of MMO's ( in my opinion ) , so even if BioWare did everything i wanted in my forum sig below , i still wouldn't  enjoy SWTOR  "crafting"  ( aka Crew Skill slave slog boring clickfest ) as much as i did SWG's .

Would be nice to hear something definitive from BioWare though. Rumors are rumors and if it is in 7.4 we will be probably waiting another 2 years for it lol.

[FlameYOL]

I'm curious too, the crafting needs a revamp the different tiers of crafting prefabs are a pain to manage. Especially considering the higher tiers need materials with lower drop rates compared to the low tiers one. 

[Skiritai]

I sincerely hope they revamp it completely, down to the last thing. I like to craft in games, when I face crafting in swtor, I leave the game for a year or two. Please get rid of this thing and start over.

I want a master craft character, there is no reason 1 char can't learn all.  Tie it into completing all 8 storylines if you wish, I don't care, just make the crafting less of a hassle and a chore.

[SteveTheCynic]

16 hours ago, Skiritai said:

I sincerely hope they revamp it completely, down to the last thing. I like to craft in games, when I face crafting in swtor, I leave the game for a year or two. Please get rid of this thing and start over.

I really advise you to be more specific than just "revamp it completely", since that could be provided by deleting all existing schematics and adding one schematic to each crafting skill that makes one useless item, and I don't think that would please anyone.

[Twelfthdoctor]

I generally enjoy crafting in other games, including MMOs, but SWTOR's crafting, especially since the introduction of 'bonded attachments' is a slow, painful slog whenever I want to make anything.

Everquest 2 makes a minigame out of it, and has entire questlines for crafters parallel to combat lines. Crafted items can be the best in the game if you spend the time and effort getting materials in the endgame zones, or were when I played.

ESO has daily missions and looting that drop recipes for all sorts of cosmetics like decorations and armor/weapon cosmetic styles ( closest in swtor would be an empty shell applied to an outfit slot), and every new zone added gets craftable things unique to itself, making spending time on *any* expansion area worthwhile. Food and potion crafting is achievable and important for pretty much everyone, crafted set gear may not be better than trials (operations) gear, but it does include making things with niche bonuses. Crafting and materials gathering is also core to upgrading gear stats, with the content dropping set bonuses to build on. A *lot* of my time in that game is spent hunting for crafting recipes to use or sell, and things are kept fresh and up to date.

What I would like to see in SWTOR is:

-A more active, less time-gated process with fewer chained steps involved. Companion crafting bonuses could be reworked, hopefully, to assist whatever new system evolves, perhaps a chance of refunding a percentage of materials used if the loss of time reduction makes leveling them seem less worthwhile (though given crit bonuses and their importance in combat, I don't think that's needed to encourage  gift-buying)

-Better integration of crafting into game play. Right now, there's a heavy bias towards biochem for stims/adrenals/medpacs, and synthweavers making critical augments (which may or may not be kept in future releases). Artifice used to get new dye recipes from reputation vendors, but that stopped some time after Shadow of Revan, with reputation and holiday vendors seemingly becoming more restrictive overall in the past few years (fewer Bind on Legacy items, several undyeable outfits --Looking at you swoop racers). Armstech and armormech should get at least a few decent visual styles to make with each expansion for weapons and armor, Cybertech used to get the occasional speeder. Crafted mods *used* to be able to reach near or at endgame stats, but crafting as a gearing method has been dropped.

-Changes to material gathering. Right now, materials of many levels are needed for conquest/prefab crafting, and I don't find myself naturally playing in areas where I would be gathering most of them. Heroic areas are all mostly interchangeable, there's no unique reward for a specific planet, and material nodes are very spaced out. It is painfully time-consuming to gather, and it does not flow well with the theme park gameplay of SWTOR that pushes activity finder activities over open world activities aside from the newest zone/planet until a reputation is maxed. Jawa Scraps and bags of "Grade 'x' crafting materials" are a bit of a band-aid for this, I will give credit there.

 

Overall, I would like to see crafting as a method to introduce more cosmetic variety into the game, act as a potential credit sink by providing taxed options to sell crafted goods and the various vendors that sell materials, and feel like a part of the game's design and direction rather than a pain-point for developers and designers to work around (or leave without updates for an extended period to avoid it interfering in the expansion gearing redesign that comes through every year or two).

 

[Kazuone]

Mabye in 7.3 update:
Game Update 7.3 + Livestream Announcement - General Discussion - SWTOR | Forums

[Krymac]

On 4/20/2023 at 11:44 PM, Kazuone said:

Mabye in 7.3 update:
Game Update 7.3 + Livestream Announcement - General Discussion - SWTOR | Forums

Aaaaaannnnnddd - 0 crafting updates lol.

[Kazuone]

yeah sad....mabye next update or.. 8.0

[jedimasterjac]

Crazy that we'll likely get an entire "expansion" cycle without any real, or even nominal, attention given to crew skills.

[Rodgon]

Crafting is almost impossible special mats are so hard to get then you consume so many just learning schematics makes the whole process pointless to create  equipment that if you are already level 80 with the exception of Augments you can't use. you send the crew on missions at a cost  and have to hope they fail so you get scrap so you can then trade that scrap for rare crafting material you suck the life out of the gamer and the fun out the game. you really need to get your act together and allow us to  make relevant gear that players might want rather than  sub level that appeals to low level characters.  if anyone is thinking of crafting  do yourself a favour ad don't bother totally pointless

[Khoxion]

On 5/20/2023 at 7:59 AM, Rodgon said:

you send the crew on missions at a cost  and have to hope they fail so you get scrap so you can then trade that scrap for rare crafting material

Just a tip, but the grade 11 slicing mission for lockboxes gives you scrap and also credits (roughly the amount of credits spent on the mission); when it crits you get 3 boxes and a grade 11 mission. I have it on my main and run it all the time. You can get thousands of scrap very fast and you don't loose money.

 

[TX_Angel]

On 5/26/2023 at 5:34 PM, Khoxion said:

Just a tip, but the grade 11 slicing mission for lockboxes gives you scrap and also credits (roughly the amount of credits spent on the mission); when it crits you get 3 boxes and a grade 11 mission. I have it on my main and run it all the time. You can get thousands of scrap very fast and you don't loose money.

 

Yes, and if you could run it on "auto-run", or send all your companions on it at once, it would be epic.  And probably break the game.