Architect Archive
Thread: An Open Letter To Sony
Dear Sony,
I started playing beta and enjoyed the game, Once released I ran out to buy the game like millions of others. Since Beta and the release I only wanted to be an Architect. Nothing else. I enjoyed making things for others and myself. Now I have had my share of crit fails although lately it has been better. I am a Master Architect, I wear a tactical suit with structure assembly tapes, I take off all armor when crafting, I make sure I have 0 battle fatigue, I make sure I am full health and full action before I assemble any major piece. I also have positive rating crafting stations at +10.24, and +13 crafting tools (The best I've been able to make) It just doesn't seem to matter and I'm there. I crit failed a Heavy Harvester yesterday and had to log off after because I was so pissed off. So many factory pieces, so much time, a pain to make as it is and poof just like that it's gone. This is fun? This is what I Pay for? to be out 100k and still have to make another one? Never mind the lost time. It is no longer fun and I am seriously considering dropping this game and go play another game not from the sony venue. Call me a whiner or anything else you want. Sony is about to lose another paying customer and the rest of you architects can enjoy yourselves. Why Sony hates arhitects and the crafting class in general I'll never know. Why did they bother to put them in? They should have made a battle class game and left it at that. Maybe if I had joined the Star Wars Galaxy knowing it was all battle class I would have been fine with it. Instead there is some masocistic dev out there that is torturing the crafting class and they have lost me as a customer. Life is too damned short to deal with this crap.
I read your post and thought hard about what I wanted to say in response. I normally don't post this type of reply to many posts but I felt it was necessary to provide some objective statements in regards to it.
First, I would like to clarify a few things. There are only 275,000 to 290,000 subscriptions - not millions. That means as a guestimate, there are about 12,000 to 13,000 subscriptions per server with about 3500 or 3800 players on at once during peak times. Architects were a solid choice for many crafters at live. This was mainly due to the fact that it was challenging, people enjoy making large items, people enjoy making cities, and other crafting professions chose this as a part time profession to get their harvesters and factories cheaply.
In beta, many of us stated how tough this profession would be. We all knew to a large degree this would be the most challenging of all professions due to the saturation of buildings, harvesters, and factories, not having degradation events. Many of the architects that voiced (no decay) were the part-time architects that had been planning to become architects solely to boost their own weaponsmith, armorsmith, and droid engineer professions. Many of the architects that yell (no decay) today are those same people and some I recognize from beta.
Failures are common and I don't feel they should change this. However, what you are feeling is the lack of reward based off the complicated profession grievances. If you fail a large item that should not be a problem, especially if the next item you do make sells for a very large sum of money. However, this is not happening at all. In retrospect, it causes a feeling of failure and subdues many emotions in all of us when we encounter it. You are not alone. Don't feel you are or that you have to apologize for feeling this way.
The solutions to these problems have been stated by some very intelligent people. I will provide a few that we as players can do to help stabilize our own profession. Apparently, we are the ones that can fix our problems and we should not leave this up to the developers as they have not provided ample feedback and solutions to our dillemas. So here is what we should do.
- First, you can semi-retire and lift up your harvesters and hold onto your money. This is exactly what I did. I'm sitting on 2 million credits and have no expenses minus what I pay for my PA and house. I have 18 harvesters of different types sitting in a bag in one of my houses waiting patiently for our profession to iron itself out.
- Second, when another player asks you to make him or her something tell them that you will do so for (resource amount x 6 credits = total) and if they balk at you, politely tell them in full what it takes to make the item and that you refuse to charge less until people like them start to respect what you are doing for the gaming community. Afterall, building isn't cheap and what we build for our communities should be felt in the form of money and many thank yous. This is not the case.
- Third, all architects could form unions and refuse to make anyone items until our problems are fixed. If this were done in the form of server wide events, the developers would take notice and have to fix our profession. No one likes negative propaganda and this is the worst type. Unfortunately, there will be a few that will continue to build but guess what? They will run out of resources fast and this shouldn't be a problem. Another problem is that you would have to reach other architects in game. Some do not read these forums or boards but many would back this type of idea.
- Last, we need the following done by developers. Decay needs to be set in to all structures, harvesters, etc. Furthermore, enhanced benefits need to be given to houses and item storage needs to go to 75 x lots with no maximum limit. The banking system needs to have it's storage reduced to 5 items or 10 items at the most. Encumberance needs to be moved to 2 weight per item so that people get over-encumbered more often. This will cause players to want housing and fix many of our issues.
Thanks for letting me post my thoughts and take care mates.
If you were guaranteed success where is the risk, the challenge?
I'm afraid I'm going to come across unsympathetic but here are some home truths
You _chose_ to be an architect, the game doesnt force you, you take the rough with the smooth.
Just because the players have forced the market price for things down dont blame the game mechanics for not making it worthwhile - either only build to order ot hang up your crafting tools until things change
You just have to wait for a few of the bugs (notably corpse looting) to be sorted out and you'll see a change in the economy - those driving your prices down either have a better business model than you do (which I'm afraid is your own problem) or the will soon come to the same conclusions you have and the market price will stabilise (i.e go up)
In contrast what you are saying is really no different that a Master Rifleman (for example) complaining that the die against high level opponents
ASHRID wrote:
In contrast what you are saying is really no different that a Master Rifleman (for example) complaining that the die against high level opponents
Don't compare apples to porches and oranges to kangaroos. In contrast, your post showed little if any, intellect. Instead of griping at the man, why not support his whine with some cheese and give the topic some meat and validity of substance where our issues are concerned. Our issues are not going to go away and vanish over night and certainly not over months. What this man is feeling is very common when I speak to other architects on my server. Berating him with useless rhetoric does nothing for helping the architect profession any. Comparing our problems to rifleman being outdamaged by another profession is simply an immature comparison and one that lacks thought. Now then, I'm done berating your unthoughtful post.
Come back when you "actually" have something to say.
Let me be the frist to say it! Don't let the door hit you on the buut on the way out!
And....
Can I have your stuff?
Ok Pad frist I suggest you actually understand my post (reading it help)
This guy is complaining about the fact that hes a master and still fails some time - pure and simple, and hes not happy with the amout of work that costs (especially at the current selling prices)
This is _no different_ to any Master Elite profession who still fails at their chosen 'job' thus my analogy of a Master Rifleman being kill by a nigh level NPC is 100% valid (dont know _where_ you got being outdamaged by another player from). The Rifleman has exactly the sameargument as this guy the only difference is that task - but just because the rifleman looses less in the process doesnt make the analogy any less exact.
At that point it just comes down to the fact that he _chose_ to be an Architect, the game didnt force him so if hes not having fun being an Architect he can just stop and go do something else (and he can be thankful that the SWG class system is flexible enough to let him do this when other games would force him to re-roll)
I hear so many people who have maxed out their profession crying that their bored and theres nothing to do and then on the other hand we get people like this crrying that the should automatically 'win' at everything in their profession _because_ they've maxed out. This attitude just comes across that he only wanted to get to master to stop failing so he could sit back, make and sell stuff at no risk and possible.
Some people just want no risk and all reward
ASHRID there is a huge difference between your comparisons.
1. A master elite rifleman can choose to play it safe killing things that he knows he can take. An architect will get screwed no matter what pathhe takes.
2. Architect does not play as advertised. They lead you to believe that you would DESIGN and BUILD structures. This is very rarely the case .... most of our time is spent being miners because the devs didn't see fit to flesh out the mining profession so it could remain in the game. We don't design squat. and we rarely build anything. We should be called miners who occasionally gets to be a building contractor. We are not architects.
3. And the critical rate for masters is insanely high. I know one guy who failed 3 times in a row on a PA hall... 64k each try. This should have never have happened. Its one thing to make the game challenging but you don't need to pound the poor guys into the ground to do it. All sony has to do is put a time lapse limit on crits to keep a person from criting over and over.
3. Our stats are optimized for surveying and crafting not combat,but thanks to the magnetic personality of harvestors we always have to combata bunch of aggro creatures who often con red since we cant fight as well as the combat classes.
4. Thanx to the game being designed to assist PA grinders the market is FUBARed as well as the limited function houses server and the fact that they don't decay, we can't sell our product for any decent amount. The devs want a free marketeconomy but even in a free market there are controls to help regulate pricing. SWG lacks any sort of control or regulations.
5. I think you miss the point. He bought this game because he wanted to be an architect. He finds out that architect isnt what it should be. He hangs on in hopes that they will fix some of the more pressing problems with the class.. he finds that we mostly get ignored by the devs. (I mean come on they didnt know about a bug that has been reported since beta?) You say just choose another class.... the whole point is he doesnt want to play another class he wants to play the advertised class except the class doesn't work as advertised. I'd be pissed too if I wanted to be a pistoleer only to find out they have to do crafting in order to use a pistol. Just like I have to use a pistol in order to be able to do any crafting.
"Now I have had my share of crit fails although lately it has been better. I am a Master Architect, I wear a tactical suit with structure assembly tapes, I take off all armor when crafting, I make sure I have 0 battle fatigue, I make sure I am full health and full action before I assemble any major piece. I also have positive rating crafting stations at +10.24, and +13 crafting tools (The best I've been able to make) It just doesn't seem to matter and I'm there. I crit failed a Heavy Harvester yesterday and had to log off after because I was so pissed off. So many factory pieces, so much time, a pain to make as it is and poof just like that it's gone. This is fun? This is what I Pay for? to be out 100k and still have to make another one? Never mind the lost time. It is no longer fun and I am seriously considering dropping this game and go play another game not from the sony venue. Call me a whiner or anything else you want. Sony is about to lose another paying customer and the rest of you architects can enjoy yourselves. Why Sony hates arhitects and the crafting class in general I'll never know. Why did they bother to put them in? They should have made a battle class game and left it at that. Maybe if I had joined the Star Wars Galaxy knowing it was all battle class I would have been fine with it. Instead there is some masocistic dev out there that is torturing the crafting class and they have lost me as a customer. Life is too damned short to deal with this crap."
Ok thats all but about 3 lines of his post (the first three lines I should add) all that is here is a rant about crit fails and how a master architect with blah blah blah equipment shouldnt ever crit fail - sorry I'm not seeing anything here about the Architect profession not being what its advertised as....
To clear up another point I never suggested he surrender Architect, just stop 'being' one until things are sorted out more to his likeing I wouldnt be in a hurry to surrender 33k xp of general crafting xp (and thats just to novice) but fortunately the system gives you enough points to go off and play with some other professions....
I HATE CRITICAL FAILS ON FINAL COMBINES....and before i get all you flamers in a knot about my last statement he is a SOLUTION(TEMP..untill DEVS do somthing)
I am a master ARC and have been for a long time...I log all my ore losses since i have been master and lost my first ever combine of my guild hall....As of yesterday i have lost 165,450 materials.....thats alot.....and i have been screaming hell about it...but i have found a new solution....
1. I tell anyone who buys somthing form me(large house of guild hall what ever this).....Give me all the resourses to make there structure and between 10k-50k for suceccful combine...depending on the time to make it...(if it fails THEY LOSE ALL there resources).....but i will offer to make it again with my own resourses for full price or they can get all the materials for me again...and if its sucessful they get it for free...if not try again a 3rd time...4th time...5th time...or they cancle order....
or 2. I sell everything for way more now...you want a large house you pay 160k...Guild hall 400k....they dont like the price find somone else....I wont waste 40 min to 2 hours makeing parts and mining all day for nothing......
I think ALL MASTER ARC's should band together and either charge more for our work...or make the person who wants the house, heavy harvester, guild hall.....get there own materials....hell for friends if they give me all the stuff i do it for free some times.....If im in a good mood....
And for the people that say the person that is giving the materials to the ARC shouldent then listen to this....
I got the ore from a person to build a factory(AND they did not understand what a critical fail is)...(my OWN STUPID MISTAKE).....so I go and build them the factory..it fails..poof..I explane to him that i lost all his ore...he was really mad...so i told him look ill make you another one for free if you bring all the parts...It was not good enough for him he wanted it NOW...ok so i built him one out of my own ores and then it was a good combine.....So im like ill give it to you for $30,000 the original price we agreed on...he said yes...and didn't have cash to i said ok transfer...(after giving him the factory,,,hever again...) He tipped me $1000 and said thats for lossing my ore......lol what a day.....
So from now on the person i build for is educated on what can be lost...and I only take cash......
That solves all problems untill the DEV'S (if ever) Fix the ARC...
If not then i will continue to build this way.....And for some strange reason im still making money...!!!
I will never charge a customer forMY failure on a specific item ( are you nuts? )
I just charge them all generally as a part of overhead.
You would loose that one customer forever, never a good idea in a business.
Oops, misunderstood your post, please ignore mine,.
hmmm I would feel really bad about what happend doing consignment work.... But yeah, cash on the barrell is probably the way to go.