Architect Archive
Thread: The Report has been sent Exact words within
Hi Kevin,
Sorry for the tardiness, Iwas unclearwhen thesubmission daywas for these reports. Here are the top 5 concerns for this week, in no particular order.
Power Core and Harvesting Mechanism - There have been a number of reports from players encountering difficulties in the manufacturing of Power Cores in their factories. The correct resources and schematic are inserted into the factory, the factory starts making the module, but it either eats the resources or shuts down after producing one Power Core. Many players require the assistance of a CSR to get their components or resources returned, the CSRs claim that this is a known issue. If Testing is unable to locate the problem without devoting a large amount of time and effort into it, I would like to suggest making any schematics that require Identical Power Cores to be changed to Similar Power Cores. If Similar Power Cores are used, increasing the amount needed would be an acceptable to reflect the change.
As for Harvesting Mechanisms, you are unable to download the schematic from your datapad to your crafting tool. It attempts to search for it but ultimately getting no results. In the end the result leaves your crafting tool bugged with the "Unable to start crafting session" message. Perhaps this is the result of a corrupt reference number associated with the Harvesting Mechanism? I would suggest making an entirely new Harvesting Mechanism using a different reference number and leaving the old bugged one as it is, but remove it from player crafting tables.
Maintenance Status - There have been varying reports of Harvesters using maintainance at a higher rate then what is displayed in the information window. However there has been no general consensus as to what may be causing this. We would like to ask the Testing department to do thorough research into all Harvesters to ensure that they are using the proper amount that is displayed in the management window. This is not a request to lower maintainance fees. Weather or not it is misinformation being given to players by the Harvesters, or Harvesters eating maintainance or any other bizarre occurrence, this affects all players, not just Architects.
Reclaiming Maintenance and Power - Please add the options to remove maintenance and power from all buildings that require an upkeep. Many players will often find themselves moving harvesters or houses to more ideal locations, harvesters especially with the dynamic resources. It is not uncommon for players to lose a couple hundred power or credits per harvester, multiply this by the average number of harvesters a player would have, seven, and the total lost is in the thousands. There are also the cases of accidental depositing of excess power, if done incorrectly, or if the player is not familiar with the depositing tool, instead of 500 they may find themselves placing 5000. This can lead to much frustration.
Permissions - Currently the Permissions Access isn't working properly. Players that are added to the Admin List for houses are unable to pick up or drop items in the house. Players on Factory Admin list cannot access the input or output hoppers. This problem severely hampers the potential sales of Houses and Factories, two of the main products that Architects have to offer to other players. This problem widely affects all players, not just Architects.
Critical Failures - Critical Failures need to be reviewed and rebalanced so that the event is not crippling, differing degrees of failures should be added. For a Novice Architect, the amount of resources needed to build a small house are 10x greater then the amount needed for Master level schematics that Armorsmiths and Weaponsmiths make (with the exception of special resources required).
For an Armorsmith to make a Novice Item, Mabari Chestplate, they're required to collect 262 resources.
For an Architect to make a Novice Item, Small House, they're required to collect 3388.
If you were to give both Architect and Armorsmith 3388 resources, the Armorsmith attempts to make 12 chestplates, 4 of them are critical failures. The Armorsmith is not crippled because they still have 8 others to sell. However if the Architect were to fail their combine, they have nothing to show for their efforts, and fall drastically behind.
Regardless of what the player economy prices these items at, the Armorsmith or Weaponsmith will always be able to make more potential sales compared to the Architect. A critical failure on even a small house can leave a player feeling frustrated, cheated and angry. This will ultimately lead to a dissatisfied customer and possibly to an early cancellation of their account. EverQuest had a critical failure system similar to SWG, where you would lose everything if you failed. Only in the last year the system was changed to allow partial failures.
This issue is Critical Failing in general. This is a separate issue from rumors of Structure Assembly not giving the proper bonus. Critical Failures affect Architects the most.
I would also like to propose adding a "Salvage" skill to the Construction Tree. Change the "Construction" tree title to "Construction and Repair", and provide Architects with the Salvage ability at Tier 1 of C&R. Architects that fail on making a building will receive differing degrees of "piles of scrap", the Architect must attempt to "Salvage" what materials that can from the ruined item. The amount recoverable would be dependant on their Salvage bonus. Only one Salvage attempt can be made on the item, giving it a contents of 1 and adding a Radial option of Salvage would probably work best (much like filleting a fish).
Salvage progression could be -
Tier 1 - +10 Salvage
Tier 2 - +10 Salvage
Tier 3 - +10 Salvage
Tier 4 - +10 Salvage
Master Architect - +15 Salvage
Giving Salvage varing degrees of success, a Master Architect could expect a minimum of 10% with a maximum of 55% in returned resources from a failed combine. Perhaps giving Salvage a more specific target as to what you're attempting to Salvage, making it more like Harvesting, to focus one which resource they want the most return of. A General Salvage would return 10-55%, divided among the types of resources used to make it, so around 3-11% of each resource returned. Or, the player could focus all his Salvage into ore and get 10-55% of it returned.
The benefits of Salvage could be applied to the long-term game, such as Ship Building, or adding Salvagable materials to MoB drops
Personal Issue - My personal issue for this week is one shared by the entire Architect profession. There is a dire need for item decay for our products. Below is my own thoughts and suggestions on what can be done to address this issue.
It is wide spread profession concern with all Architects that at some point and time all players will have a house and enough harvesters to last them a life time. Without some form of item decay I believe that their concerns will become a reality.Ihave written out a managable system for item decay.I hope I'm not asking the impossible, that's for future e-mails 
The mainreasoning behind my idea is this -Buildings should be able to be repaired by simplyadding more credits into the pool. In the real world, if a complex machine breaks, it will need to be repaired, either by yourself or a certified professional. It is unreal to think that if your Harvester dipped below 100% from lack of upkeep that inserting more credits into it would repair the damages.
This is the decay system I am suggesting be implemented -
Ifa buildingever runs out of credits to upkeep itself, and it drops below 100% maint,the buildingwilltake Structural Damage. In the current system, once a Harvester is damaged it ceases it's activities, I am not suggesting removing this system Players can insert more credits into the maint pool to prevent the building from acculmilating more Structural Damage, however the building will not return to 100%. The only way a player can repair the Structural Damage and return the building to 100%is with aStructure Repair Kit.Structure Repair Kits, or SRK,would cost about40% of the total resources for the appropriate building size.
StructureRepair Kits would be similar to Stim Packs, where a player is required to have a certain amount of Repair skill to use the Kit. If a player attempts to use a SRK without the correct certifications, the amount repaired will be significantly lower, or they may even risk further damage to the building. An Architect could experiment on SRK's to increase their effectiveness and lower the requirements to use. Players could also purchase Fabrication Droids from Droid Engineers to meet the requirements of using a SRK.
I would also like to suggest the idea offor StructureRelocation Package. Once a building is placed, it cannot be moved without the use of an SRP.Moving something as big and complicated as a house or harvester should not be a "one person job". The SRP would assist players in the proper removal of their structure. The use of a SRP would be similar to that of an SRK. There would be varying degrees of success for the relocation of yourstructure.Also players mayrun the risk of damagingthe structure during the movingprocess if done incorrectly. Much like in the real world, if you were to incorrectly package your items during moving, there is the possibility that something may break. Binary Load Lifters made by Droid Engineers would be able to assist players to reduce the risk of damages to their structure.
It is my belief that with adecay system like this,and inconjuction with the addition of the consumable repair and moving kits, the system would be widely accepted by all players.
Please consider what I have said, for itis the single most majorconcern for all Architects. I hope that the gravity of this issue and the importance of thisis reflectedin my actions,that I wouldsacrifice mypersonal request slot for the greatergood of thecommunity. It is widely known that I would rather be discussing furniture. However I feltthat this concern that the whole community shared outweighs any sort of personal request I could have made this week.
Sincerely,
Zarcath - Architect Correspondent
Mitsudo - Ahazi
Takenoko - SWGCraft.com
I am not to sure of the item decay part. I would find this acceptable is maintanance fees were done away with.
Then again, how many would like to move intoa new house when their house is packed full?
Can you sneak in that piece of furniture that has the wrong artwork.. the top level armoire .. it has the same artwork as the midlevel one, and should actually have the 'white' furniture artwork.
Hi.
I like the report. Very nice.
On the idea of critical failures. I still think if we are to have critical failures on nested schematics, ie. medium and above houses and factories, that if we fail we should fail only on part of the nested thing. And then add the salvage thing for the part we failed on.
Ex. Medium house has Generator Turbine, Structure Storage Module and 5 Walls nested inside it. IF we have a critical fail on Medium house combine then one of these items should fail. For our example lets say we fail on a wall section. The combine says: Critical Failure. Then we pop back to original combine minus 1 wall. Then Zs salvage opportunity could appear in a new window. What shouldnt happen is we lose everything. Its 22.5k resources to make a medium house.No other class has such resource needs. A failure for architects is huge.
For your next report can you stick in more furniture and the ability to color it? And also rugs, wall hangings, more plants....etc. Also fix the architect lights already...only torch is working.
Prehtarkis--Architect--Starsider
I think the Structure Relocation Package would be a great Idea. Especially if it let you move your house without first picking up everything in it (I know, alot to ask for)
Overall a great report though.
Please mention factory crate issues in your next report. They arefar more annoying to me than the broken factory admin permissions.
To recap the crate problems:
1. When removing items from a crate, sometimes the count will decriment by 1 and then go back up to the original number. No item is removed.
2. When removing items from a crate, sometimes it will take upwards of 5 minutes for that item to appear in your pack.
These 2 issues seem to be related to subserver lag or possibly database lag. Running to a different subserver or trying again after a few minutes or so usually fixes the problem, but for me, other than the critical fail rate, these are the mostirritating and common problems I have as an architect.
3. Crates do not work properly in factory input hoppers. You have to remove each item by hand to load components into the hopper. This is especially annoying when building wall modules in a factory, particularly when coupled with 1 and 2 above.
4. Crates are visible in the craft tool when making an item, but do not load items into the schematic when you try to use them. Again, you must remove each item by hand.
5. While I have not experienced this personally, there have been reports of having problems with crates if the server crashes while you are removing items from them. Apparently, you can no longer remove ANY items from the crate when this happens.
There was a thread here a couple days ago asking for folks input on what their #1 concern was. Virtually every reply (there were many), was that due to the disproportionate need for materials, Architects need more Harvester lots.
Why wasn't this mentioned?
Nice Report - I like the item decay you propose with maintenance not repairing the damage but allowing the structure to continue functioning at a reduced rate. This does effect houses in the short run but think of the fact that a player could not return a house to deed unless the house was at 100%. That could work.
Though one problem is that most people will not ever let the maintenance run out on their structures. So never any need for repair. Weapons and armor decay is based on use. Structure decay should be based on time. So as time passes a structure should take damage that requires repairing. If maintenance is not paid then this happens at an excelerated rate.
I'm a little disapointed that you didn't include a summary of the Wish List and general consensus in your report. We definitly have more then 3 issues and 1 personal issue to express as a community to the devs.
Please try to help exspress the consensus ofall our oppinions and offered solutions along with your own. You are our voice to the devs.
TY again for reading all these posts and being our voice.
Good post
I like your idea on having houses and harvesters decay. I think it would be a perfect system except for this. Any rich or smart gamer would never allow their house to even get clost to where it could go below 100% if they knew they had to get it fixed by a specialised (ie not just put more money in).
I think it's still a good system, but random things other than if the maintence fee is paid up should hurt a structures Percent. I'm not saying by much or anything but after a month, a house should basically automatically go down 5-10% That way after a few months they will have to get a new house or "repair kit."
Also I really like the idea of the repait kit taking as many materials as a house would or miner would. That way us architects would still have an income. It should just be a kit that surveys the house and tells you how much material of what you need. So it will say u need to input 2000 units of ore and 200 units of steel etc. I think this would add to your system and truely make it the best.
Before next time u send in your report, please make an "official post" of things we would like to be in the next report. Thx again, and good post.
