Architect Archive

For the most crafting professions (weapon/armor/med) a non-master cant even come close to the product of the master .. But even for architects there is no way a non-master can use lower quality resources.

I didnt like the crafting system that didnt make it .. masters without tapes had worse results than before while masters with tapes had far superior results. Now having a tape should you a better product (which doea already) but not a such a different that will obligerate the masters product. What worth in being a master then? tapes prices will raise at the billions (not that they arent expensive already) and for someone thats not already established and covered with tapes, not only it will be impossible to sell anyting (like with the submaster levels now masters will be worthless till they get the tapes), but it also will almost be impossible to get hold of a tape. Is this supposed to be having fun in a game? mass exodus!

As for leaving the changes longer in. Even the one day was one day to much for the changes to be left in. That was a grave mistake, giving oportunity to some to exploite it.

The crafting system would have been great for architects and artisans. It would ahve sucked for weponsmiths and armorsmiths who is new, doesnt have 12exp points or a hoard of ubber resources. Specificly any new guy. While the top 5 crafters in a server would have the great resources and the extra 2 exp points. It would have widened the gap between the top 5% adn the rest in a way, that very little market share would have been left for the rest.

In one day quite a few master architect on flurry made BER14 and 11s schematics. The biggest Arcthitect on Flurry, can probably crank out 100s of these in a blink, as he runs 300 harvesters. I am not teh biggest, probably not even in the top ten. I have 12 exp points. I still vote this change down.

This change basicly catored to single line crafters (i.e. architects), or 12 exp points users with boocoo top resources.

More than one day, and the economy will be even more screwed up. One of the top armorsmith on Flurry cranked out ubber armor with uber low hams. How can any new or midlevel casual crafter break in and try to compete with that? The schematics are already made.

I cant believe they let it go live.

As someone (Pawlin I think) said in another post, it's not clear to me that they really really defined what "problem" they were trying to solve with that experimentation system. As others have said even in the product lines that in theory would benifit from this it would have made the rich richer in the long run. And if you talk with just about anyone who needs to experiment multiple lines to accomplish anything (e.g., BEs), it was a absolute disaster.

I like the *concept* of being able, through some mix of high-quality resources and "skill", to hit 100% experimentation on something. But I'm not sure how you achieve that without in practice just biasing all the practical business transactions toward the established master.

Frankly, if they want offer some spread in the architects line between Novice and Master, there are several places where they could introduce experimentation (e.g., factory rates) to accomplish that. Or perhaps even add a decimal to the BER, so we could have BER 13.0 up to BER 13.9 or something.

So, even though I benifited a bit (I made schematics for 2 BER14 heavies) from that one day test run that shouldn't have happened, I think it was not only a bad experimentation system, but they were totally irresponsible for letting it go live. If they had slipped the patch 1-2 days they could have avoided this.

Pros:

I think it was kinda neat making BER14's.

I do think only masters should be able to make the best stuff and this change seemed to accomplish that.

Cons:

I don't really even know what the goals is. What is the problem they are trying to solve? Maybe if they start by defining the problem in a clear manner thenwe might be more receptive to the solution they present.

The changes really looks like it will hurt the smaller or newer folks by giving the established masters a leg up that they don't need.

SEA's seem to be extremely useful with this new patch. SEAs are all gathered by AFK looters in the Borgle cave. That is a BIG problem in itself that this change only fuels.

It seems that most other professions were either nerfed or just a mixed bag.

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Maybe if they addressed the cons above then I'd agree to the changes.

As it is, I don't think it will be beneficial on the whole to keep the changes.

My opinion is pretty much as I have stated previously.

1. I was neither for or against the change in the beginning, I certainly felt that there was a need to differentiate between a Master and a regular Architect, and if this was the way the Devs chose to create such a situation then fine, although I was sceptical of it's ability to actually do this. After all it would appear to be the case that an architect who was NOT Master would be capable of getting as good or better results than a Master under given circumstances:
a) Having the highest quality resources - can be bought by anybody who goes to eBay and either buys the credits or the actual resources for RL cash from there.
b) Owning Skill tapes - again eBay traders can do this with enough credits bought with RL cash
c) Research Centre
d) Luck on Amazing sucesses.

2. Given that the 1 day change has created a 2-tiered market of 'haves and have nots', what purpose will it serve to extend the period? IMO this will only exacerbate the current situation. Those who did not have the ability to reach the new max levels on day 1 will still not be able to. If you did not have the resources good enough to make them yesterday, then what makes you think that another week will make any difference? On some servers there is just no available resources at the requisite levels, on others there seems to be an abundance. Although this was tested on TC for some time, I for one did not hear of any examples of BER14s coming out of TC. Why? I can only presume that the environment on TC is too far skewed from the other servers (you can tell I don't have a toon on TC), for example, were the best quality resources available? Are there SEAs? Cities with Research Centres? Given there were no reports that I saw of BER14s in testing, even though it was postulated that these MAY be possible, there was no real reason to believe that the existing caps were removed sufficiently to allow 100% + 100% results, the conditions that seem to be needed for 14s (I could be wrong with some of these statements, I am tired after reading so many posts and cannot remember everything I have read).

3. I feel that having made the decision to withdraw the changes, that this is exactly what should have been done. I cannot believe that it was possible to put in the patch on Tuesday, and then Hotfix on Wednesday, without the hotfix being prepared. The Experimentation part should have been removed from the patch completely, if this was not possible because of the 'trickle' patches, then the Hotfix should have been added to the patch so that it was wiped before it could be used. If this was not possible because the Hotfix was not ready, then the patch should have been postponed for 1 day (that's all it would have needed) either to remove the Exp change, to add the Hotfix on, or to remove the trickle patch.

4. Once the change had gone live, the decision to pull it should have been reversed. Read the thread that started with the announcement that the change would be pulled after 1 day, there are enough posters warning the Devs about the false market conditions that would be created by such actions, the Devs were told, they had the opportunity to listen to what the experienced gamers were telling them would happen and do something before it was too late. They chose to ignore these warnings and went ahead anyway. Now we have a situation that is not good for anybody in the long term.

So, make that 1 day into a week and what do you think will happen? The problem will just get bigger. At the moment it seems the timing was short enough to limit the damage somewhat, players who could not get on for one or other reasons have not made 'freaks', players (like me) on odd timezones who were not able to play once the exceptional results started being reported did not get an opportunity tofollow the lead on how to do it, so if wedid not hear it happening and our own results did not imply it was possible then we missed the chance, players who did not have good enough resources stockpiled couldn't manage it, and those that could and did only had enough time or sufficiently good resources to make limitednumbers of schematics. Yes, go ahead, lobby for longer time if you want, but then all you will do is give the opportunity for those conditions to be rectified, and for more of the 'haves' to stockpile schematics, and the gap between haves and have nots will widen, thus making it impossible for the have nots to survive because after that week, they will be consigned to the scrap heap with the label 'NEVER WILL HAVE'.

Finally, do not believe for one moment that I am saying this out of any degree of bitterness, envy or for personal gain. I AM a master, I expect I CAN make 14s if this comes back, I HAVE the millions of resources and credits to be able to invest in making literally THOUSANDS of these beasts. If the period of testing this out is extendedI WILL take advantage of it. I just believe it is totally wrong to suggest, wrong for all architects, especially the have nots. If people want to try this out for longer then lobby for a change in conditions on TC so that they reflect the conditions in the gaming galaxies, and tell people to go and get a toon on TC, but not on my server please.

Either bring it back for ever so everybody will eventually get a chance, or forget it completely, try to survive what has happened and maybe see it sometime in the future in a new improved version that is permanent. 1 week more? Forget it!

In 1. what I mean is that a Non-Master who can meet all these criteria can do better than a Master who cannot meet some or any of them. I could be wrong, but that is what I seem to read between the lines.

Message Edited by Bandola on 03-18-2004 12:06 AM

I agree. I think it was rediculous that it was pulled by people completely unaware of what it was actually like, but were scared about the reports they heard. This should have been left in game for at least one weak, so people could have had more time to actually experiment and work around with it. My architect character loved it. First time I have ever been able to make something reach 100%.

Also, in architect, if you want to make the best harvesters, you only need to get to the Experiment Line to IV and the Harvester Line to IV. There, with the proper material, you can make 13 BER Heavies, 10 BER mediums, and 14 BER Fusions. I know this for a fact, because when my one character was giving up Architect, this is exactly what I did. Why should someone who has only put in half the work get the same results as a master?

Now, I also have a Chef/BE, Tailor/Artisan/Architect, and Doctor. Though my results with the others were not as great (hard to get great organics, such as meat or flora), I still think the new experiment system is much more rewarding. I prefer to put work into something and get better results (i.e. spend the time gathering the best resources), than the way it is now.

One reason I find tailor to be horribly boring: no experimentation. However, I like tailor for what it can make. Just not how it is made. But, alas, such is the way it is.

One day is not nearly enough time IMO to judge this system.

Personally I worked most of the day the new system was in place. Resources happened to shift that day for me too, so alot of my play time was taken up with the dreaded relocation of all my harvesters.

I did get to make a couple schematics for crafting tools at 15.0 .

Thankfully, the master level furniture still exists and they fixed the armoire finally, YAY!.

The fact that BER 14's might exist on my server doesn't bug me too much. Most customers don't know it was possible to make them. I don't mention to people buying my BER 14 Fusions that there was a bug last year that let you make better ones.

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Aderyn_W wrote:

I.

Also, in architect, if you want to make the best harvesters, you only need to get to the Experiment Line to IV and the Harvester Line to IV. There, with the proper material, you can make 13 BER Heavies, 10 BER mediums, and 14 BER Fusions. I know this for a fact, because when my one character was giving up Architect, this is exactly what I did. Why should someone who has only put in half the work get the same results as a master?

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Personally, I benefitted from the new crafting system, and I truly benefitted (for a while at least) from the one day where you could make BER-14 heavies. I've got schematics ready to go that will let me build about 750 of them.

I think that the new crafting changes would, however, be bad for the game. Professions that need multile experimentation lines were hurt badly. It puts even more of a premium on ultra-uber resources, making it very difficult for noobs to get into crafting. It puts even more of a premium on having skill tapes which, again, makes it very difficult for noobs to get into crafting.

Given the huge production capacity of Architecture Masters who are well organized, there would probably be little demand for BER-13 heavies - the big guys would completely satisfy the needs of the server for BER-14 equipment (I'm a semi-big-guy on Gorath - not as big as Dvnce, but I usually produce 40-50 harvesters a week). The cost of entry into Architecture would be the investment of 10 million credits for skill tapes plus waiting for 3-4 months for ultra-high-grade ore and steel to spawn. These barriers to entry would be all but unsurmountable.

That having been said, leaving these changes in for one day was particularly stupid. Guys like me who could jump on it will do well. People who didn't have the time or the ready materials lose out. They should have delayed the patch by a day rather than let this loose on the economy.

Finally, the conditions they have set up on test server don't seem to let anyone accurately gauge the effects of these changes on the game. Weaponsmiths reported that their weapons were worse. When we get to live, they're better. Architects reported that their harvesters were worse - smaller hoppers and no BER-14. When we get to live, they're better. The fact that people on test center 1) are using inferior materials, and 2) don't have +20 in skill tapes means that they really can't test this stuff, and that's a real problem.

I realise my first post in this thread was far too long to hold anybody's attention long enough for them to read my intended answer to the point of the thread, so here it is in brief.

No, I do not think it will serve any purpose to have a 'longer period' to test the experimentation changes out properly. The correct place for that is TC, but then TC has to have the same or similar conditions as the 'live' galaxies have, or can expect to have.
There is little point in testing the limits if there is not a full range of readily available resources of significantly high resources, or indeed without a sufficient range of different quality materials to explore the effects of best, midrange and worst resources. I suspect that TC players did not have access to 980+ resources, 12 exp point players, best equipment, Resource Centers etc. all of which seem to contribute towards achieving 14 BER. Otherwise I think we would have heard confirmation beforehand that 14s were indeed possible.

So, the only responsible way of bringing this back for a longer period on live would be to bring it back permanently, otherwise keep it away from us until it has been revamped into a model that will be accepted and will stay with us.