Architect Archive
Thread: The Problem....?
Virtually no high end content or challenges on the crafting side. Once you get to master and have high quality materialits all just routine as far as crafting goes. Our challenges amount to just business competition at that point (which is fun) but the act of crafting itself is just click, click, click, done ...over and over and over.
2) what is wrong with Architect Crafting...?
We are completely ignored and our bugs / issues are never addressed.
Message Edited by Pawlin on 07-12-2005 10:46 AM
Message Edited by Talon001 on 07-12-200501:35 PM
Message Edited by Talon001 on 07-12-2005 01:35 PM
1) what is wrong with Crafting In General?
The tedium/grind of just load and click. The lack of unique/new schematics that aren't looted from a corpse.
2) what is wrong with Architect Crafting...?
The lack of customization and choice. When there's one style, one color there is rarely any need to make that item again. If there were options on items like furniture though, like color and more styles, there would be an increase in items requested and repeated customers...to some degree at least as people remodel or want to change the color theme of a house. A less cumbersome system for decorating would go a long way to encourage periodic remodeling, too.
There is also little to no variation on harvesters and factories. Once you reach the max BER, the only thing that changes is hopper size (and I've never had any complaints that the hopper size wasn't big enough). Factories produce at the same rate and hold the same amount of items as any other Architect's factory.
Housing choices, particularly on Corellia, are absymally limited. I know it takes a lot of time for the art team to make that stuff, but it's really something needed. More styles, more types of buildings, more Player City buildings.
3) what is wrong with the Economy... ?
In general, I think it's in pretty good shape. There aren't drastic swings high or low for regular items, at least on my server. I've had the same prices for over a year now, and I remain in the average for my server. There is some disparity in the average CPU per profession, but that's not an area that's easy to impact when coupled with the steady hold of prices. It's the loot market that gets wildely out of control, with people spending millions upon millions of credits on items that come down to who was luckiest to get the drop...and pure crafters have no way to get in on that market. The loot market is a combat profession commodity, and many combat templates (particularlyJedi)make more money, more quickly than I can as a crafter.
Dvnce wrote:
Ok.. Lets have this discussion... Lets try to keep your explenations brief and to the point...
answer these questions...
1) what is wrong with Crafting In General?
Mind-numbing at master-level. Nothing to stimulate us beyond profitablility issues (i.e. no crafter content). Just as everyone else has stated - click-click-clickity-click...done. Whoohoo another OMU schematic!
2) what is wrong with Architect Crafting...?
Stagnant. Architect hasn't evolved in eons. It's the same old thing, with the same old look - except those "exciting" loot schematics that we aren't even capable of getting off the mobs they come from.
3) what is wrong with the Economy... ?
Honestly, not much (at least on Chilastra). It gets a little out of whack when something "new" hits (e.g. smuggler slicing components), but on the whole it seems rather stable and sensible (Trade forums excluded). I do see a rather significant disparity between cpu pricing on goods across different professions, but like in RL it's all about the buyers perception of value.
I'll be succinct.
1) what is wrong with Crafting In General?
Fundamentally, the producers of this game mistake the original vision of a player-driven economy for a bunch of loot houris. They have represented their intentions with every publish and expansion. For instance, shipwright still cannot make products better than trash loot. Architects get furniture schematics from very rare drops (radar screens) that people want, with one use. Droid Engineers get a schematic for a headless droid as a drop (again one use). Can anyone of us say that these things are actively fun to deal with past one assembly? I think no.
Crafting NEEDS a vocal SOE advocate. NOT a correspondent, an ADVOCATE. That person should be:
- Insanely enthusiastic about crafting in SWG.
- Communicative to the community to the point where we say they give us too much information.
- The leader in the production crew for taking all facets of crafting from point X to point Y over a period of time.
- Gleaning the forums and players IN-GAME (not some QA poll) for what we want to see grow/change in the various crafting professions.
- Publicly display specific changes within all crafting and crafting communities resulting from this position.
2) what is wrong with Architect Crafting...?
- Lack of variety in old products.
- Loot drop schematics mostly worthless and undesirable.
- Lack of decay in current product lines.
- Lack of products with a variable outcome that effects their use (as in weapons).
- Lack of communication from the developers with the community (read none). Also lack of vision from the developers to the Architect community.
- Lack of implementation of of Top 5/Top 10/whatever for 2 years.
- Lack of specific Architect achievement or quests.
- Lack of recognition within the development cycle as a viable profession.
- Architect could be easily broken up like Jedi into 5 specialty areas past Master.
3) what is wrong with the Economy... ?
The economy is an after-thought to the game. It is not incorporated into regular gameplay or bugs would have been fixed that have been in the crafting/merchant communities for 2 years. Economies that are built upon permanency in products are ridiculous. For example, in a real world scenario I have working gun and rifles that were owned by my great-great-grandfather. But in this game a weapon is useless after maybe 10 hours of play use. OTOH, a crafting station, clothes, harvestors, furniture, etc... were all made permanent with no gameplay decay for what reason? Honestly, I believe there is none. Every change to the economy is made without any real explanation whatsoever to the community. Communication from this development team is non-existant on crafting to the point of self-destruction. We've seen ONE graph on the economy is two years. We've seen zero support for long term economic development and the one thing that has helped the players enjoy themselves IS mass production, which is always displayed as some evil.
If the developers don't want to get down and dirty, just do the averages. How many players use how many weapons devided by the number of weaponsmiths on a server that actually craft anything?
No one is looking to create monopolies, we're looking to create cash flow. Cash flow makes the game and without it you have nothing but looters controlling potential goals of others. I do not want to become a loot houri to support the community established in-game. The crafting devs need to go play "A Tale in the Desert II" for a week and they'll understand cash flow much more.
I dont want to see what you would do to fix it .. ( not yet )
Good, that part will not be succinct.
Fivo Asia
Message Edited by Cafa on 07-13-2005 01:03 PM
Dvnce wrote:
Ok.. Lets have this discussion... Lets try to keep your explenations brief and to the point...
answer these questions...
1) what is wrong with Crafting In General?
TOO MUCH CLICKING.
Interface showing resources has been screwed up for awhile, on the screen when you add resources to the schematic. There are no green bars to show resource quality, until you add it into the schematic, in which case - if you're adding a resource from your backpack and want to remove it for something better - you get an error that something about something being invalid, and it goes back in your main inventory, which you have to then drag back into your backpack. In other words....click, click, click, click, drag, click, click, click.....boring.
Some professions are mired in subcomponents. More subcomponents don't necessarily make things more interesting...it's just MORE to deal with, more resources, more inventory space wasted.
Quick example: Droid Engineer. Why the hell do they need a ton of subcomponents just to make a stupid droid? It makes factory runs a nightmare.
I'm not interested in dumbing down DE, I want those subcomponents to DO something, if I'm wasting so much time with them.
2) what is wrong with Architect Crafting...?
Oh, dear...here we go....
- no return business (or very little)
- furniture that is ALL THE SAME COLOR (height of boredom)
- houses that are ALL THE SAME COLOR (height of tedium in player cities)
- houses whose floorplans are stagnant, and dull, and remain the same since god knows how long. boooorrrring. An Architect should be able to DESIGN floorplans! Gimme a break!
- TOO MUCH ORE NEEDED (ore is limited to 50% or so spawns, typically...unless it's a JTL resource. total pain!!!) The amount of ore I have to dig up is just plain stupid.
- ORE, ORE and more ORE - Wall modules can kiss my................
- Did I mention all the Ore I need to dig up? It sucks.
- Countless, endless items in the game that would be GREAT to decorate with, but as yet we've only got (as an example) a few plants to craft and place in our homes. Decorating is becoming stagnant, we need more to work with. To see stuff I'd like to see in-game that is craftable, take a trip to Mos Entha Starport. Exit the starport and go to your left, where there's a big rectangle of buildings around a recessed area of tables and chairs. Go in the houses around the recessed area. Note all the different types of Finely woven rugs, and different types of plants that are still not in the game. Why are they STILL not in the game? Who's arm or leg or whatever do we have to twist to actually get more Architect schems? No colorization, stagnant schems, stagnant housing designs/customization = one big, boring game.
3) what is wrong with the Economy... ?
Anything new and different costs a fortune, because there is far, FAR too little new and different stuff added to this game. We need regular additions of items to craft and sell, to keep things interesting. We DON'T need another multi-million credit rug loot kit extravaganza, or bubble tanks, or whatever else - just give people schematics and IMPROVE the game. Stop with the loot kit fests and NPC Event Coordinator money sinks. Give PLAYERS new content on a regular basis. And not just loot camping, 1337 d00ds who can rake everyone over the coals for their little special loot kit item that took them 14 AFK days to loot while they were at work.
Do it right and give players new content, new schematics, new customizations. Keep the economy rolling. For some kind of technologically advanced civilization, the influx of new and better/different products is stupidly low.
The freakin' items are already in-game, just put the schems in people's datapads. It'll be okay, they'll craft them and sell them and it'll be great.
Honestly, I think there's too much of the same old, same old to keep the economy thriving. Things are horribly boring and cookie cutter out there in the galaxies. Look around - there's little to nothing new under the sun.
I dont want to see what you would do to fix it .. ( not yet )
Message Edited by Warryyr on 07-12-2005 03:57 PM
Warryyr wrote:
- TOO MUCH ORE NEEDED (ore is limited to 50% or so spawns, typically...unless it's a JTL resource. total pain!!!) The amount of ore I have to dig up is just plain stupid.
- ORE, ORE and more ORE - Wall modules can kiss my................
- Did I mention all the Ore I need to dig up? It sucks.
Come to Tempest Warryr! I'll cover your ore costs. 
Fivo Asia
Cafa wrote:
Warryyr wrote:
- TOO MUCH ORE NEEDED (ore is limited to 50% or so spawns, typically...unless it's a JTL resource. total pain!!!) The amount of ore I have to dig up is just plain stupid.
- ORE, ORE and more ORE - Wall modules can kiss my................
- Did I mention all the Ore I need to dig up? It sucks.
Come to Tempest Warryr! I'll cover your ore costs.
Fivo Asia
lol
But I've been on Starsider for so long....
1. Not enough rare and exciting items to be crafted. Maybe more loot dropped sch. Crafters need to have some quest we can do for cool rewards like the Clone armor & cyber arms. Perhaps a quest to get special schmatics something like the RIS armor.
2.Need to be able to color furnituire! And we need better looking furniture in general like some of the furniture you see in game but we can't make. How about the ability to make some holos since SOE has gone holo mad or some mini items like a mini speeder or ship. We need more exciting buildings, arenas etc.. something to add to our business. Maybe the ability to change colors of structures, like a vehicle custom kit. I think architects should be allowed more lots. My house is full, my other house is full so I have little roomfor harvestors. You are almost forced into lot trading.
3. Economy is fine, but it seems people will pay millions for a speeder, weapon or armorbut don't want to pay much for a house or other structure that take lots more resources to make.
1) what is wrong with Crafting In General?
Not enough diversity in products. Crafting has been mostly ignored by the Devs in favor of a combat-obsessive mindset. Basically, we need MORE things to make!
2) what is wrong with Architect Crafting...?
Abysmal color options, stagnant housing market. We are also falling victim to the loot ho's, with almost all of the new things we can make coming in the form of an item scavenged off a corpse. And our Experiemntation is disgustingly useless.
3) what is wrong with the Economy... ?
Loot dominates. Loot is too easy to get. Loot is evil. Loot must die!!
1) what is wrong with Crafting In General?
From the initial design, too much emphasis has been placed on how usefulcrafted products are to other players, rather than on how much fun crafting is for people who like creating things. Yes, it's important to establish a reliable supply of crafted goods... but that's an effect that ought to emerge from making crafting so much fun that everyone wants to do it.
Summary: crafting focuses too much on product and not enough on process.
Discussion: Crafting: A Blueprint for the Future
2) what is wrong with Architect Crafting...?
Architects don't get repeat business because the things they make are too simple and don't decay. Once a player visits an Architect for a house,maybesome furniture and possibly some harvesters, he never needs an Architect again. (Player cities only help Architects who belong to a Player Association.) And with only a very limited number of predefined house styles available, there's no way to actually do creative"architecture."
Summary: Architects need schematics for items that either decay or can be combined in creative ways.
Discussion: Modular Architecture: A Redesign Proposal
3) what is wrong with the Economy... ?
It's stuckat aprehistoric level, and it's a zero-sum game. (The answer is not "inflation" -- there is no inflation.)
It's prehistoric in that the most advanced form of reliable business transaction possible is the two-player, one-shot Secure Trade Window... but that's no better than what Og and Brug the cavemen used to exchange flint spearpoints for antelope pelts. There's no way that players can contract with each other to form long-term business relationships, and no "legal system" built into the rules of the game to enforce contracts.
And it's zero-sum in that there's no way for players to add to the total amount of intellectual capital in the game through creating truly new kinds of objects. We can only createroughly identical instancesof predefined kinds of objects. This prevents new/young players with good ideas from being able to compete with old/established players who have millions of resources stockpiled, making the economic game less fun than it should be, and making the player economy less efficient than it could be.
Summary: Players need more kinds of economic interactions available, and need to be able to create new kinds of items.
Discussion: Player Contracts: A Design Document
Discussion:Player Contracts: The Short Version
Great questions, Dvnce! The responses should make for interesting reading....
--Flatfingers