CUEmu - Thread Posts

Downbeah

Mon May 31, 2004 2:01 pm

Trying to be constructive here, but lets face it I'm mad

I know that there are a billion posts on this, my apologies.

Currently the best resource to credit ratio, the most profit, the best selling items that we make are harvesters. With everyone grinding to unlock their jedi, it drives tons and tons of players to crafting, those players need harvesters, and we get the business yay new customers! What happens when hologrinding stops? What happens when no new customers are coming because everyone has their harvs already? Well, we stop selling them.

The fact that architects do not have a (viable)consumable product is a very pressing issue with our profession.

The devs attempt to help remedy it with candles and lights has been a complete failure (and a total joke imo). First of all they are bugged, once they are placed in a house they will be there forever, even once their condition reaches Zero, unless they are picked up. This means that oncesomeone decorates their house with them, they never need buy more again (*cough*, just like everything else we make).Secondly the market for them isn't that great to begin with. It's not a nescesity, they take up precious item storage space, etc. Many people simply could not care less about having those items. Sorry to the people who spent hours and hours decorating with them, but FIX THE DECAY. Make them burn out when they are supposed to.

What's the solution to keep architects in business even after every character has a house and harvs, every city has a cantina and ashuttle you mayask? Well I'll tell you, but most players are not going to want to hear it.

Put usage decay on harvesters. Put a condition rating on them, let us experiment it, let us make repair kits that anyone can use but give architects a repair bonus (ala armorsmith, wepsmith). Now before you freak out, I'm not saying to make them decay after 1 spawn of a resource.... Give them a reasonable lifespan. I dunno, a month or two of use time?

In the current system if the maint goes to 0 and they are taking damage the player has to pay to repair it. This should Not change, its a good money drain, and it's their fault letting it run out of maint. However when that happens,it should alsoaccelerate the decay on the new condition stat.

Lets face it, that would save the architect profession. Harvs are needed by all crafting profs, and many other profs. It would give us turnaround on a product that actually is worth a damn to own. We cannot do it on houses because that would suck to lose your house, decorations, items etc, won't happen. But why not on harvesters? I've yet to hear a good reason why this shouldnt be in the game.

Another idea I have is to make harvester powerups. Like weapon powerups they would be consumable items, you powerup your deed and it does something cool to the stats. One could be a credits per hour power up, reduces maint by 5% for 5 days max. Or whatever amount / duration is appropriate. A diff type of powerup could increase the extraction rate by 1 or 2 for 1-5 days depending on quality.

I love architect, but the market is flooded, the items we make never get used up, and with hologrinding ending soon new customers will be scarce. The occasional twink / alt character perhaps will buy harvs.. newbies? We're screwed, this needs to be addressed.

Thank you for reading.

Ideas? comments? Suggestions?

Downbeah

Mon May 31, 2004 2:02 pm

#2

ack got the "you must be registered with fanclub thing.

sorry, stupid bugged boards. let this one fall off please.

Downbeah

Mon May 31, 2004 2:13 pm

#3

To elaborate on the harv condition decay...

Say harvs have a condition ranging from 50-100 depending on experimentation / quality. Every24 hours 1 point is taken off the condition. A good quality harv will last you just over 3 months, when it reaches 0 it is unusable. Then you have to either buy a repair kit and try to repair it, or go to an architect that gets a repair bonus and they repair it. The duration / condition of course is just a rough suggestion.

Please let my double post die, stupid boards hehe.

PistolDance

Mon May 31, 2004 2:25 pm

#4

While I dont agree with harvesters having a lifespan (thats what we pay main for) I do think the powerup idea is a great one. Could also have it so the arhcitect gets a % of the maintenance credits?

Milandra (SI)

" Into the garbage chute fly-boy! "

Ramalen

Mon May 31, 2004 2:31 pm

#5

I agree completly and think it's excellent ideas. Something I would suggest is you could have harvestors "slotted" like the new lightsabers, and have

some sort of extraction unit or power unit that has the condition decay. That way the harvestor wouldnt have to be rebuilt from scratch, but people would have to buy the component to replace. Also 3 months is too long, the game has only been out a year. Should be more like 30 days of having a harv down before it needs repair. This is all very realistic, irl oil pumps and whatnot take constant maintanence and repair to keep them working.

We need a real option other than crappy candles to keep archs in business. harvestors decaying sounds like the best answer to me.

Downbeah

Mon May 31, 2004 2:57 pm

#6

PistolDance wrote:

While I dont agree with harvesters having a lifespan (thats what we pay main for)

Cut maint in half then, or remove it all together I really don't care. If you are looking for roleplaying reasons why you pay maint it can be explained many ways. The fact remains that we are the only crafting profession in the game that's goods don't decay at all, whatsoever, not even a bugged decay (I dont count candles, they are crap, it's like vehicle and droid color kits, purely cosmetic). Tailors decay is bugged I admit, but at least they have condition on them now... And tailors make components for armorsmith that has decay.

Eventually we will run out of customers. There are only so many newbies, forgetful ppl, and ppl with 2 accounts or unlocked, to be customers for 100 architects or more per server I have no idea how many. Once they buy our product, a product that iscrucial to the game, for like 2 credits per unit resource wise on most items.... They get to keep it forever while the weaponsmiths and chefs make millions from decay and consumables. BER10 medium minerals are practicly the only thing I can sell for more than 2-3cpu. I'd make more credits selling the resources and saving the time then making the arch items.

sigh, sorry to rant, I'm just sad that this profession I enjoy will eventually become completly useless, getting like 2 customers a month once everyone is done hologrinding.

zoynk

Mon May 31, 2004 11:19 pm

#7

Yes, once holo grinding is over - so is arch. Arch has already been slammed into a hole due to the amount of people grinding the prof in less then 6 hours. Lets face it... Most of the cities are already out there. By the time a newer city needs structures in order to expand, chances are there will be a master arch in that same city. Everyone has a house, harvesters, etc by now. If not, they weren't too serious on grinding. Parking garages didn't help. Candles/lights sure didn't help (since most structures have their own lighting anyway).

Chances are, when demmand drops to an all time low, those who aren't crafting or don't require resources will sell their harvs off just to get rid of them. Archs will lower their prices even more, making the newer archs suffer more so. There will be price wars based on such little demmand, that the long time archs will eventually form some type of monopoly. What's the point of obtaining a market share when there is no market?

We need something disposable. Something that will be in demmand. But chances are, as we all know, nothing will come our way until the expansion. We'll sit back and die off, much like DE's and Pikeman.

"You feel an inner glow... The caffeine is with you."
Master Smuggler
Master Architect
Master "Oh look, another revamp pushed back " Mad Man

Anubios

Tue Jun 01, 2004 2:14 am

#8

I agree, this is one main reason I amd dropping architect once I've used up my pre-built components.

Don't get me wrong I love the architect Profession, it was My first elite profession to master, but lack of repeat business has killed it off for me. Something needs to be added that will get this profession repeat business more than them stupid candles/lights.

I know some architect's on some servers are still making a good amount of sales bit over all I guess there is alot that are struggling for sales..

So I'm dropping it for Doc till either something good is added or JTL comes and I'll try Ship builder.

Good luck to all architect's out there

================================================
*** Anubios Oune -- Echo7 -- Elder Architect/Doctor/TKM - Chimeara ***
*** Egnaro Eciuj -- -bbb- - Level 64 - Medic - Farstar ***

Astev_Aris

Tue Jun 01, 2004 11:01 am

#9

PistolDance wrote:
While I dont agree with harvesters having a lifespan (thats what we pay main for)

You maintain your car, but it still has a lifespan, no? Perhaps if you spent a lot of money maintaining your car, replacing every major component as they wore down and broke, you might be able to keep it going for many many years, but IMO, the amount of money required to maintain a harvester is not representative of this kind of maintenance - it'smore like oil changes and alignments.

Also, what we're trying to achieve here is some kind of repeating income for Architects. Miner maintenance does not currently accomplish that.

___________________________________________________________________

Astev Aris. (Formerly) Master Artisan/Architect/Shipwright

Founding Mayor of Skyfar (Retired) - Naboo, Bloodfin, -3980 6350.

For those who may be unaware, this is a lame-a$$ sig.

Niklesnitz

Tue Jun 01, 2004 1:11 pm

#10

Astev_Aris wrote:

You maintain your car, but it still has a lifespan, no? Perhaps if you spent a lot of money maintaining your car, replacing every major component as they wore down and broke, you might be able to keep it going for many many years, but IMO, the amount of money required to maintain a harvester is not representative of this kind of maintenance - it'smore like oil changes and alignments.

Also, what we're trying to achieve here is some kind of repeating income for Architects. Miner maintenance does not currently accomplish that.

Liking current maintenanceto oil changes and such is not represntative to what actual maintenance you pay on a harv. I don't remember having to ever change my oil everyday my car was in service.

The only reason I am against harvesters not having a lifespan is because they require to many resources to make, thus making the price high. For havesters to decay and eventually become useless, they would need to reduce the resources needed so that we could charge less and make them more appealing as a repeat buy.

Add in the regular maintenance on them and power requirements...having to go buy more harvesters when your's die is a very unappealing venture.

Holosim - Master Architect of Flurry
Emee - Gunslinger of Flurry

Come see the market of New Freeport, Naboo - Flurry
Just a Hop, Skip and a Jump from the Shuttleport

royalewitcheez

Tue Jun 01, 2004 11:27 pm

#11

I would like to see the powerups for harvesters and especially factories. Make them harvest a little more, or if something could make my factories faster I would buy them up like candy.

Armor by Rooyal
900m Directly ~~west~~ EAST of the Theed Spaceport -3980, 4080 Naboo (Ahazi)

Sevardos

Wed Jun 02, 2004 8:40 am

#12

Well, don't disagree that Harv sales will drop - absolutely they'll drop. However, the number of active architects will also drop. From what I understand, the holo grind created a bubble economy and obviously, it won't be same as before (wish I was around to take advantage of it hehe).

The market will stablize and those architects who remain active, will see an initial drop but then should start to see an increase in salesagain but not at the bubble economy levels. Architects will also need to diversify to make up for falling revenues from Harvesters. Personally, I do extremely well with Furniture and seem to have a continuous steady business - and furniture commands 10 to 40 cpu depending on what it is.

Don't get me wrong, I support consumable products and like some of the ideas presented (not a fan of the harvester decay though). Architects will just have to be smarter.

Also, and I know that what I'm about to say for some of you willsound like "2 + 2 = a bushel of apples" - but prices go up when a market gets saturated, not down. Therefore, your making more per sale and there are less Architects to compete with becausethe current number is inflated due tothe hologrind.Mind you, gaming economies don't generally follow rl patterns, but that is what Architects should be doing. /shrug, guess time will tell.

Sevardos

The ))SUN(( Centre

636 -3836 Corellia (just outside Coronet) - Bria

Buff Packs * All Meds * Harvesters * Factories * Designer Furniture * Tools

*** ALPHA TESTER: Combat Balance ***

xKhaziCx

Wed Jun 02, 2004 9:06 am

#13

Harvesters, like weapons, are well-oiled machines. Nothing more. Yes we all have to pay maintenance into them, just like you do with your car. Money to change the oil, replace worn out parts, ect ect. That doesnt mean that a car will last forever does it? Hell no it dont! Fact is, is that no matter how good a care you take with any machine.....time will catch up to it.....

...Unless you bought a harvester from an architect. In that case you will never need to buy another machine again!

As a matter of fact...you can find a complete stranger from across the galaxy to come and place them for you, and never have to worry about them again! Oh ya....except for power and maint.

What a deal huh? To think that I pay weaponsmiths 100's of credits per unit of resource....over and over again. But I pay an architect 6 cpu ONCE!!!!

HAHAHAHA the gods are cruel no?

Architect Archive

Thread: When Hologrinding stops, Harv sales drop (candles did not do it devs)