Companion instead of player crafting was a major mistake

[Melaco]

keep the game like that starwars devs. dont listen those wow funboys.

[Kotli]

TBH it makes more sense to me that the classes would use there minions/slaves/companions to do stuff for them. In case you didn't notice you are paying them a wage to do the job.

 

The only thing that could be changed is letting you craft an item yourself if your at your spaceship crafting station (according to in game lore there is one in there), then those I want to make it myself can. The rest of us can still use our minions to do it like proper Siths etc.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Kotli

[AwesomeMcGee]

If you want to play a crafter, go play eve. Its possible to do nothing but craft and gather and level those skills in that game.

[Aepervius]

Best crafting I've seen was in Vanguard. Couldn't stand a great deal of the rest of the game, but the crafting was awesome. It was also occasionally tedious and heart wrenching - but that one perfect epic piece after hours was totally worth it. If you're going to complain about the crafting in SWTOR, at least have a better crafting experience than Wow. As a few others have already commented Wow crafting and SWTOR crafting are similiar enough to not be worth crying about the differences. It's not like Wow had innovative crafting: gather mats + click button = gear. Simple forumla and this game puts a small spin on the same process.

 

I don't know why anyone would feel the need to watch their character wiggle their pixelated fingers for the 2 sec craft time versus clicking a button and going on about your life until the item magically pops into your inventory, but if you're that dead set on watching your characters fingers wiggle go back to Wow.

 

+1 I *loved* vanguard crafting, it did give me the feeling to do crafting. I also loved the diplomacy game with the 4 color and the cards (although I was probably one of the few to lvoe it).

 

Now *that* was innovative crafting, as opposed to time consuming grind like FF 14 (don't get me started on FF14).

[KrelosDarksky]

Actually, it was dead long before this game. I can see why you're disappointed. If I were the kind of person who only played MMOs to craft things, and I was uninterested in every other aspect of the game, I would be pretty bent about it too. However, crafting was found to be a great way to smooth over one of the largest issues with MMOs - RNG trouble. Make crafting relatively accessible, make the materials somewhat time-consuming to gather, and make the products comparable to items achieved in other areas of the game through similar time investment. This helps even out the curve on gear progression in these games.

 

Unfortunately, unless crafters could make items that were better than anything that dropped anywhere, these days are never coming back. People want the absolute best item (typically) that they can equip. If it comes from crafting, you'll see a big dump in the number of people willing to play the game long term, they'll just grind out the mats, find the crafter, get the item made, and then once they're kitted out, quit the game.

 

The problem is that we tend to try to focus on one element that we really like and ignore the fact that most people like more than one aspect, and that most aspects are interconnected in some way.

 

And I would argue that your analogy is specious: you can still go out and gather most materials, you need to generate cash for yourself to send companions on missions for rare materials, or buy them off the AH, and you can spend no time leveling and all of it crafting. It's totally possible. It's not very sustainable, but if it's really what you want to do, it's possible. It has been slightly altered, not fundamentally changed as you suggest.

 

That's a pretty jaded point of view.

 

Crafting has been a large part of the gaming world in MMOs. The standard was set by SWG and I'm yet to find another game that gave as much attention to that aspect of gaming.

 

Now it is threatened by the GIMMEGIMMENOWNOWNOW crowd that thinks they should either be able to loot it in 15 minutes of their OH SO VALUABLE gametime or buy it from a vendor.

 

Players are too quick to dismiss the crafting side of these games because they don't do it or because they don't have the patience/attention span to do it.

 

'Crafting' in SWTOR is more like factories in SWG. It isn't really crafting and the OP has a valid point.

 

Do I partake in the SWTOR's version?

 

Sure ... I'm a crafter and I'll take what I can get.

 

Is it REALLY crafting? Not really. And any other crafter worth their weight in wares out there would agree.

[KrelosDarksky]

Except that PotBS was better.

 

You had the ability only to craft a limited number of items, not remotely based on your level but rather based on your willingness to invest and ability to reach the location to retrieve them.

Each of those items were probably used as a component of another item, so that it took an entire guild of people working together to craft the most complex items - the ships each person needs.

Crafting could go on while you weren't present, so long as you started it and stopped it.

Crafting was so complex that it required a production line manager to keep it running smoothly. And excel spreadsheets.

 

PotBS's system was not nearly as good as SWG's.

 

Not only that .. but what you describe sounds a LOT like how components crafting functioned in SWG.

 

Go figure someone saw the system SWG used and copied it.

 

 

 

 

But that is a whole other topic for another thread and totally off-topic here.

[XavierIsaacFudge]

Im a Sith Lord so you can be damned if im going to dirty my hands gathering plants (I do Bio Chem and Analysis), i have robots and stuff for it. Whats the point in being Sith and might and powerufl if i have to scrounge the world for crap.

 

Sure its part of my story as an Iquisitor but thats it, send in the minions If that fails send in more minions, eventualy you will get what you want.

[Tikigit]

Maybe the OP is a gold seller? Only gold sellers enjoy doing mundane tasks like gathering materials all day. Me, I play games to play them... not simulate a farmer and pretend it's my second job.

 

Oh please, so much bigotry in that comment.

 

I can understand why people can dislike the crafting system as it's not player centric and certainly does disconnect the player from what has previously almost always been a profession that people could get involved in and use to define their character... now it's just a timer in a window that spews out random disconnected voice overs at timed intervals whilst you keep doing the same general things (Killing, talking, flying, killing, killing some more etc)

 

In previous games I've found myself really focusing on crafting as well, games like SWG, Auto Assault, Ryzom and similar have had crafting system where I could spend hours focusing purely on my characters 'art'....

 

Yet I find myself not all that bothered by the approach in ToR because there are now new ways to define my character through the story and companion relationship systems beyond feeling like a father figure who is naturing all those hyper active kids who just want to run around bashing each other over the head.

 

Not going to be enough for everyone admittedly as not hand making the items will make people feel less fatherly and not so much a caretaker of the community, but the foundation is there for Bioware to add sufficiently more variations in reverse engineering and new schematic finds to develop the system to reasonable standards of diverse choice as the game matures....

 

Course that's only good for those that enjoy the making and discovery of new schematics itself. For those that are more dependent on the feeling of being needed or some fatherly figure that people respect just from making items... yeah not going to be enough no matter how the crafting system develops.

 

Pretty much in the wrong game for that kind of community recognition in any regard though to be fair.

Edited January 3, 2012 by Tikigit

[Solrael]

During Wrath of the Lich King, on a particularly dull day off, I decided to level my fishing. I spent the entire day in Northrend, just cast and pull, cast and pull. It was, without question, one of the most boring experiences of my life.

Flying around Uldum in a crappy-copter collecting ore was positively mind-numbing, and standing around Dalaran/Stormwind trying to hawk my wares made me want to punch someone.

WoW's crafting system was a time sink, in addition to gold sink. You may enjoy it, and bully for you, but I'll take crew skills over it any day of the week.

[justabloke]

In WoW and other games when I want a major break from questing, or PVP - which I hardly ever tire of - I pursue my gathering and crafting interests. I can spend a whole day on this and enjoy it. This is another reason why the Bioware devs have a major disconnect from players. They just don't have a clue.

 

In a few days I'll cancel SWTOR, and resub my WOW.

 

can I have your stuff?

[adrianvacaliuc]

I definitely prefer this system to WoW. My only complaint is how freakin' long missions and crafting take. I mean... 25 minutes per L50 stim? How exactly am I supposed to dominate a market when it takes me all day to make 25 stims!?!

 

I understand certain gear pieces or ship upgrades taking 20-40 minutes to craft, but medpacs and stims shouldn't ever take over 10 minutes.

 

Finally someone who at least brushes on the underlying problem!

 

Everyone is disingenuously saying "just watch the craft bar if you want it like WoW". FALSE! A WoW craft takes seconds, not 10s of minutes. It's not even anywhere near the same thing!!

 

I like having crafting alts. If I want craft the lvl 23 purple saber hilt for my warrior, I'm forced to stop playing my warrior when I hit lvl 23 and grind out who knows how many blue hilts at 9 minutes a piece before the pattern finally pops. How is that in any way fun or satisfying?

 

Sure, I could chose to quest with my crafting alt or something, but any time a game makes you do something you don't want to do, its frustrating. Gathering mats is already gated via time (either by running around gathering or by missions), why do I have to pay that time tax again on the craft itself?

 

Personally, I think its a mistake to place a timesink on the actual craft portion of the end product. It only does things like artificially inflate the cost of goods due to a reduction of supply. It's obviously an intentional decision, but an unfortunate one.

[HanzBlix]

worst post eva

[Bobty]

Yeah I loved the tedium of running round for hours collecting mats to level proffessions or the extreme challenge that came from buying all the mats off AH to power level....

[ghostin]

I don't think it is a major mistake, but I do miss my toon actually crafting. I think what would a be a nice addition is too have the crew skills be maxed at 2 and the player gets one. That way you're not relying on companions, but also make crafting quests for schematics, bonuses, and vanity items.

 

I think BW can add a lot more to the world of crafting, even though I do like it atm. It is nice knowing that I have a crew to help get stuff while I run around doing things.

[bombastulin]

I was one off the first 700 weapsonsmith crafers on my DAOC server. I was still level 10, yet maxed out. Everyone in their 40s was running around with my weapons. When I logged in, I was deluged by tells. The other 690ish weapons crafter was furiously trying to craft over me, but couldn't close the gap because I was willing to spend more time crafting.

 

I killed more players than anyone else in that game. At level 10. Because all of the Celts were armed by me.

 

That will NEVER happen for anyone in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

 

 

Now comes all the posts from people who don't normally craft telling me how great their style of play is and that I should like it.

 

I certainly hear you that you have a certain itch and SWTOR doesn't scratch it for you. But there's a reason none of those other weaponsmiths ever crafted as much as you, you know. Some of them didn't have enough RL time, but some of them did and they all chose to spend it in the game some other way.

 

Some other game is probably better for you. But count me in with the vast majority of players who far prefer this system. Let an underling craft while I'm doing killing mobs and watching cut scenes. I'll tell 'em what to do, and that is plenty of involvement for me.

Edited January 4, 2012 by bombastulin

[Volki]

In WoW and other games when I want a major break from questing, or PVP - which I hardly ever tire of - I pursue my gathering and crafting interests. I can spend a whole day on this and enjoy it. This is another reason why the Bioware devs have a major disconnect from players. They just don't have a clue.

 

In a few days I'll cancel SWTOR, and resub my WOW.

 

You essentially can do the same here. I've spent days researching crafting in game and on the forums/google.

 

Not sure why you actually have to see an animation of yourself tinkering with a hammer.

[CommandoPower]

With further experience I think this crafting system is unique, and good for a long casual run only. Other folks are left in the cold It's not bad per se, but it has it's own set of flaws.

 

It contains small niggling irritations for me. Irritations that are starting to bother me more as time goes on. I'm beginning to miss being able to directly craft myself. I've traded one set of issues for another set of issues.

 

1. Takes excessive amounts of time to make small amounts of items. I cannot, say, gear up an alt in anything less than an hour with good stuff even if I have all the mats and professions needed.

 

2. Takes excessive amounts of time to gather mats unless you personally go comb the wilderness yourself. Even then depending on luck and location it can be extraordinarily slow.

 

3. Certain common MATS are in fact uncommon or rare. For example, how often do you run low on desh? How often do you run low on silica? How often do you run low on laminoids?

 

4. It detatches you from your crafting.

 

5. Crafting here is currently worthless once you hit 50.

 

6. It's given to you on a silver platter. Hence even if crafting was worth something, it'd still be mostly worthless as everyone can achieve it easily.

 

7. It takes away the crafter role from the MMORPG. Crafters in good crafting games are people you want in your guild even if they never PVP or do a single Raid.

 

8. REing sux.

 

9. REing sux.

 

10. REing sux.

 

 

Don't be fooled the time sink is there. Bioware is a genius. You know all that hands off time you saved by having a companion do everything for you? It's all gained back by the need to RE retarded amounts of times to get what you want/need.

Edited January 5, 2012 by CommandoPower

[Atreiya]

This is a pretty asinine thread since you're...actually, I'm not sure what point you were making since you can personally gather from nodes all by yourself on a planet. i fail to see how having a companion prevents you from gathering materials yourself. I know that I went out and harvested plenty of Opila crystals on the last two planets I was on.

 

Companions A) provide an alternative means of gathering and B) help get me certain mats I otherwise can't easily get. I wish I could give this thread zero stars, but apparently the lowest one can go is one star. Oh, and as a WoW player whose main is a miner, I seriously hate competing with other miners for elementium ore if I end up in Uldum at a freakishly busy time.

 

EDIT: Yeah, you go see how "fun" it is to have to waste two-plus hours of your life trying to collect enough ore to prospect just to get three nightstones for a JC daily. And that includes going after just obsidium (because competing for elementium can be a colossal pain). BTW, I have four level 85s,and my masteries include mining (on two toons), jewelcrafting, enchanting, tailoring, herbalism, alchemy AND blacksmithing.

 

ADDITIONAL EDIT: actually crafting an item may take a good long time in the TOR system, but that's time that I haven't had to waste on flying around and competing with others for nodes. That's time which I can spend on doing something, oh, fun.

Edited January 5, 2012 by Atreiya

[Morvelian]

I disagree with the author and am happy that I do not have to waste my time in game on farming. I enjoy my life

[adrianvacaliuc]

1. Takes excessive amounts of time to make small amounts of items. I cannot, say, gear up an alt in anything less than an hour with good stuff even if I have all the mats and professions needed.

 

8. REing sux.

 

9. REing sux.

 

10. REing sux.

 

Don't be fooled the time sink is there. Bioware is a genius. You know all that hands off time you saved by having a companion do everything for you? It's all gained back by the need to RE retarded amounts of times to get what you want/need.

 

Your first point is the strongest flaw, IMO, and is this issue that will kill a truly robust crafting economy. The fact of the matter is that in most MMOs, you usually have a handful of big mega crafters that supply large portions of the demand in an economy. This is usually because not everyone enjoys mass production of items. Fine, to each their own.

 

However, this system is specifically designed to prevent any kind of mass crafting. Case in point:

 

1. Stupid long craft times for items (not gathering)

2. You can only queue 5 items per companion.

3. You can only list 50 stacks on the AH at a time.

4. Only 1 crafting profession per character. (which is annoying because this implies 6 50s for complete market coverage yet there are really only 4 class storylines, but whatever)

 

Sure, you may argue that everyone can craft easily, so that backfills some of the supply, but that's not actually all that true. The only patterns that are more valuable to craft than the mats are the ones that you dumped a lot of time into to generate via RE. Most casuals are going to see the crippling rate of returns on RE purples and stop bothering. So again, your back to only a few dedicated crafters actually spending the time to be able to create the good stuff.

 

Its not ideal, but a crafting game that only caters to the leveling game isn't the end of the world. The leveling game here is among the best I've seen ever, and will fuel a strong demand for a long time. That specific issue doesn't really have to be addressed until the next tier of raids, honestly. Endgame crafting's only real goal to provide entry level gear for the latest raid usually.

 

The problem with nerfing the mass crafters is that since they are typically the engine that provides a huge supply of stuff at reasonable prices, you as a casual player can't hop on the AH and find anything that you would like. Take Hilts for example. At any given time, there are at most less then 10 or so artifact quality hilts on my server available. There are usually huge level range gaps on what is available to purchase. This isn't a gathering issue. This is because even if you have the patterns, one person can't produce enough to feed demand.

 

Atlas Shrugged anyone?

 

Regarding RE: Yes it sucks. Mostly because the punishing RND element to it. It would be fixable with some tweeks, but everything else is weighed down so heavily by the oppressive craft times.

 

How do you fix RE? Easy, provide us RE fragments of stuff that you combine for a new pattern. Call it broken [item] parts or something. Tell us in a tool tip how many fragments you need to learn the next pattern. Give us a random number of fragments per RE. You maintain your RE timesink if you must, but at least we as players don't melt our faces off in frustration in destroying our items and loosing the coin toss 10 times in a row.

 

The frustrating part is that there is already precident IN GAME for this! Treasure hunting companion gift quests reward fractional companion items! WHY OH WHY can't RE at least work this way? Rift's salvage system is superior to TOR in this specific regard.

[borghe]

Not really the issue. There's too much supply and too little demand. Every character is a high level crafter. Because they can send their companions on grind quests. This devalues crafting in general and removes some of the fun for crafting characters. When everyone is a skilled artisan, it's worthless.

 

what you are saying for greens is true. However what you are saying is not true for level 22, 23, 24, and eventually 25 blue and purple gear. We've already divided up amongst the 4 cybertechs in our guild who will take on knight, consular, trooper and smuggler schematics.. We have one max level cybertech currently (rest are in the upper 300s), but the rest are prepared.. The cost to research these mats, at the early part of the game, will be expensive, and by the time it becomes trivial presumably the new tier of content will be available.

 

There is no real difference between crafting in SWTOR and WoW, aside from not needing to be sitting in town doing nothing to accomplish it. Or for EQ or whatever else to be honest. except for SWG.... and let's be fair... SWG definitely extended out the process, but in no way did it really make it more fufilling. What SWG did do right IMHO was the quality of the mats used and giving very small variations to the crafted items... so a crafter who got a rather quality vein or minerals created for a brief time a higher quality of blaster. granted not at all realistic or mirroring life.. but it was an interesting take.

 

nothing swtor is doing is breaking the mold, but likewise, nothing you are talking about is really breaking the mold either. it's all different coats of paint on the same style of house.

[Curios]

This is true. I loved SWG crafting.

 

Though, I think I am having more fun crafting in SWTOR. I like learning new schematics. The only thing I might change, is giving us the option of which new schematic we learn. For example, if I have to RE 50 blue pieces of armor, I think it is fair to let me choose which purple version I learn.

 

I love the fact that I can send my companions out to craft. I watched my friend craft in EQ2, and it just looked so boring to me.

 

In SWG you didn't have learn schematics, you MADE schematics. I loved the complexity of the crafting there. If you were an armorsmith you had to have an alliance with a tailor for your cloth. You had to be on top of resource spawns and if you were into it as heavily as I was (first Master Weaponsmith/Master Armorsmith combo on Intrepid) you had to run multiple accounts. Factory management was complex in both storage and crafting. Becoming a 12 point weaponsmith and armorsmith was difficult and gratifying because it meant you could make server best stuff.

 

I couldn't kill a cupa but I provided armor and custom weapons for a large portion of the server.

 

I long for a game that has crafting and gathering that approaches the level of SWG. It's one reason I follow the SWG EMU project. They're getting closer and closer and I'll probably join the community in full when they do.

[krjett]

Eve Online is the perfect game for you sir (OP). People can literally sit around and craft all day and become known as the next best thing. Pick up an obsession with Wormholes and you'll be the best crafter of the craziest stuff out there. Most games like this allow everyone to be a top lvl crafter because it is so nice knowing you are wearing what you made. In WoW there was nothing like DAoC like you've explained everyone had top lvl crafting to enjoy the perks.

[BBriggs]

You would rather spend time running around the same areas over and over gathering items to stand still and wait while your crafted item loads than PvP, quest, or run flashpoints? Go ahead and run back to WoW. Seems no gamers can take change.

[Shadpwfox]

I personally enjoy having the system work this way. Keep one with you and have the others gathering/crafting while you quest or do other things, IMO this is brilliant. I like crafting but it can get so tedious, I'd much rather send my slaves er..Companions to do the dirty work while I collect the profits