Architect Archive
Thread: Architect Issues Designer responses
Great post Oldman Rakon. Just want to reinforce what he said about the factory bug. I hardly dare use it for fear I'll lose yet another recipie worth of materials. As for the people responsible for the factory bug, maybe you don't have to fire them. Put them on something closer to their skill level like spell checking manuals or planning the company picnic, just keep them away from programming any code. Outstanding idea to have chests that could contain items and not count toward house limit.
Have to disagree on taking the GP module from the torch schematic...want to keep Master Artisans like me in business somehow.
All kidding aside, devs....fix the factory bug. Really....FIX the factory bug.
Tammerlane, Master Artisan of Gorath
I totally agree with Manaman! I mean this guy just basically laid it out for you devs! Jeez! I wish it was me that typed that! Good job, Manaman!
OPEN YOUR THINE EYES, DEVS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP SCREWING UP THE GAME!!!!!!!!!
De're Crestingwalker
Head Architect of GoA
Master Architect/ Master Medic
Why would I want to get a Large House when it eats up 6 lots, costs a lot on maint, and only holds 250 items? You are far better off just getting 2 small or 2 medium houses. Its cheaper, uses less lots, and hold more items.
It should be like harvestors. They all count as 1 lot. No matter what the size. So it pays off to upgrade your small personal hervestors to medium and heavies.
The devs should drop all houses to use 2 lots. I'd love to buy a Large house, buts it not worth it.
MY opinion on the Architecture Profession
I have read the forums for quite some time and a lot of the discussions is redundeant. I believe the developers are looking into the issue. Maybe the "It sounds like a bug" does tick some people off but not everyone is in the same department, give them time. There is so much going on and im sure their bosses are screaming behind there backs at their cubicals to get this done. I've been in customer service for quite some time. They will fix these issues but insulting "Q" and his views about the topics is off the wall. Lets move on to either the issues that are present orlets all come up withsome good issues. I like reading many of our suggestons but when you have like 20 things youlike to see in the past 5 replies already posted,it really gets old. Now for my views.
1) Using Snapshot as a grounds for paintings if pictures becomes a furniture piece.
This would be so cool to take snapshots of anything yousee and save them not just in the file but in your datapad and then when you craft a picture your able to paste the photo inside the frame. That would be really nice. And the Developers and Programmers can put it in a special file type that only SWG in-game can read (to prevent unwanted content from being uploaded).
2) Schematics In the "Master Artisans" Should be relocated.
The Architect skills are unbalanced.A playerneedsa few morenovice skills (Such as Droid Engineer) and the Master Artisan title just to be able to solo Architect without the need of Artisan providers. There are about 5 schematics of general Crafting items (power cores, Electronic GP Modules, ect) under the Master Artisan Title. This eats 57 skill points for Master Artisan + 6 skill points for Novice Droid Engineer (Droid Storage Modules used for harvesters) and 15 Skill Points used for Scout (Used for harvesting Hide for most furniture items). Yet to become a Novice Architect alone you only need35 skill points.
The pointmade here is that many Architects feel it isdifficult to keep a buisness and profession such as Architecture and hold some of there own elite skills to fend for themselves from there enemies in the Galaxy we live in. There are numerous dangers in the world and since players must go more than 1000m away from a city to build a home and start a buisness, players need more protection and players who want to be Architects just dont' have enough skill points for that. The skill points either must be raised or simply move all schematics from the Master Artisan Title to the engineer columns and divide them accordingly, most of us don't need these things until we make Novice Architect anyways (include teh schematics for Droid Storage Modules for harvesters too).
Now for the bugs I've found
1-in constructing mostly houses, structural components, and installations I found that after a Critical Failure is made, the resources seem to get stuck in the Ingredient Slots. A player must click back and start the process over. Visually it does not show the resources used at first, but it is apparently gone after the CF.
2-When constructing items and not just installations or houses, mostly components, if you press enter before the crating tool finishes loading/crafting, sometimes the components you plug into the ingredient Slots are lost or hidden andthe must wait about 20min after log so they may reappear. Otherwise they appear gone. This needs to get fixed.
3-When unloading items from a factory crate it still does not completly unload all the time (Sometimes it does but in this case it does not) I belive this was suppose to be fixed but I guess not)
4-Resource Shifting way too much
I know I said I was'nt going to be redundant but this actually has put me temporarily out of buisness because once a resource changes the machine stops harvesting completly. And since I calculate how much ore I will need the next day to make the money I want, I tend to go bankrupt because the harvester stopped harvesting my ore/Non-Ferrious Metals simply because the resource changed. Then I dont' have the money to maintain my harvesters and they go into disrepair. I realize it's a bug but it's very very serious and needs to be fixed asap.
5-Critcal Failure rates are actually higher when they were to be lower
This was suppose to be fixed ("it sounds like a bug"). I find that I experience more critical failures than ever before the Big Update. I hated CF's then and I really hate them now. I have gotten 4 CF's in a row. And it seems to happen in sequence. The rate is so common now I can almost guess when im due for a Critical Failure. One time I guess right. In addition to this, lag seems to play a big part in our Critical Failures. If anyon has experienced lag as they craft they know it's a slow process and it seems almost certain that a CF is bound to happen when the "loading" message goes on for about 2 seconds. This needs to be fixed probably more than anything.
6-Nerf Wooly Hide from couches and most furniure
maybe im a bad hunter but killing durnis and other wooly creatures seem more trouble to me than killing gubbers or lizards and such. I dont' know, but I can't seem to find enough wooly hide to make counches and other furniture at a factory paced rate. I can have like 50 sofa chairs but only 2 large beds simply because it requires wooly hide. Make all hide usable for even complex items if possible. I mostly see leathery types and Bristly types on corellia, and on other planets it seems to be the same song. Either make more wooly creatures more plentful or simply nerf it and make all hide available to use on any furniture that requires it. Quality does'nt seem to matter anyways.
7-Make the Big Yellow Couch and Ballot box retrivable after dropping, I had to have a CSR pick up and destroy these because they were not able to be picked up or moved around.
These are all the bugs that I can think of and to my knowledge and experience they are true. If any of you guys know the Architect Correspondant, please inform him to read some of these suggestions, im sure poor guy is trying to scan though the forums to find some new issues. These may be some since I have yet to see these bugs posted. Ok im gone, take care 
Otakahn/Lowca/Corellia Thank you for reading this guys your so cool!
Master Architect
Manaman wrote:
Ok. Top 20 problems I see with the archi class.
1. Fix the lights. We can master space travel but still have to light our houses with burning wood. Stupid.
2. Increase whats needed for lights, make torches NOT require an electronics GP module. What is electronic about a piece of burning wood and a rag soaked in oil?
Not to jump on you here, but what's from saying it isn't "simulated" fire and oil that's there, with just a little electronics control that makes it like that. We have those things now, and they can look pretty realistic. Beyond that, I've never had to put any more oil into it.
I'd say the bigger issue is: More Variety. A master architect cannot make the full spectrum of furniture seen in the game, cannot configure colors the same way an armorsmith can their armor, and doesn't have any furniture that groups together well in "sets" like you see in real life.
3. a /raise up or down command is needed. I would love to put a desk lamp on a desk, rather then drop it on the stairs and play air hokey with it for 20 mins.
It'd be nice if there was a system similar to the harvester placement system for furniture, where you can just drop it where you actually want it to go. I'd also like to see a detatchable camera for placing furniture, so I'm not strictly confined to one person's eyes when placing things.
4. (personal beef) Master Architect furniture is too common. Its used as patio furniture in Kerens cantina! That makes me feel so special. Please remove the master furniture from places like that.
5. FIx the model of the master archi armoir. How hard can this fix be for gods sake?!
6. Please dear god add some artwork of some kind. anything at this point..
7. Fix the factory issue. Its only been a few weeks..Maybe if you fired the person responsible for it it would put the fear of god in the rest.
I'll agree with the first part, but getting angry and vindictive towards the devs will not get us help or wanted attention.
8. Furniture decay.. put this in please. Maybe tie it to how often its used. I duuno. Dont care really either..but it would be nice to have something called a "repeat customer"..
The same would be nice when dealing with structures as well. Yes, they have a condition, but it'd also be nice if they had a max life cycle. Weapons degrade some, even if repaired. Why can't these have an over-all condition modifier that goes down over time. Present condition is fine for upkeep reasons, but even the best, most-well maintained piece of equipment will someday need replacing. And if they upped it according to the level of harvesters (personal ones should break down more than heavy ones, since they're smaller and would be more likely to fail). It'd be nice if houses worked the same way, as well as factories and everything like that. Now, everytime I sell something to someone, I've pretty much ensured that I'll never do business with them again.
9. Add more structures please. Yes we all live in a house, but to be very honest its few and far between that I go to someones house to buy food. Would it be that hard to put in a shop model or something? A big room with counter.
All I can say is wait for Urban Planner
10. Why, if i cant shoot off my balcony, can i not put some furniture on it?
11. Back doors on Large houses. Good idea. I think only one exit is a fire hazard anyway.. Especially since we cant see out of or open our windows.
12. Lots. Can anyone explain to me how a small house and a medium sized house take up the same amount of space? What kind of math are you guys using?
Small and Med houses don't take up the same amount of space. Small takes 1, Med takes 3.
14. Amount of allowable items in houses needs to be raised. Or give us the ability to make a storage building of some sort.
Very, very true. A backpack or storage item should be 1 item, since empty or full, it'd take up the same space. I get that this is a database size issue, but how hard is it to make a sub-level db that is only queried when someone steps into a home. Also, I can fit the same amount of junk in my small shop as I can in my medium home. That's just silly.
More so than that, the items that are put into a home need to have some functionality added to them. A chest of drawers, a storage crate, a chest, a toolbox... these should all do something. I have all this furniture around, yet to store things, I need to put down a mystic hovering backpack.
15. We need more and better furniture items. Maybe a stage for bands. Maybe some apliances. Podiums would be nice too. And last i checked there WAS more then one kind of tree in the universe.There is more to life then sitting folks.
Again, urban planner. Though I think there should be a much wider variety of trees and flora for the home
16. Allow chests to store items and have those items NOT count towards the structures item count. No containers in the chests either.
Yes, see above
17. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE release a definitive list of EXACTLY what each experimentation value and what each modifier to an item DOES! Ask 10 people you will get 10 different answers.
No one else has this list, so I doubt they will really provide it. However, it would be nice if experimentation and construction did do something. You get 10 different answers, but all will agree on one thing: the construction branch is pointless.
18. Fix the exploding leaf bug. Not an archi problem but been around since beta and its time to fix this for gods sake. If you are incapable of fixing it, remove the algoriythm for it from the game till you can. See my example about firing those responsible.
Getting condescending isn't going to get anything done. There are less than 30 people working as devs and content developers for this game, and there are a couple of dozen professions. There is a wide variety of problems, and their plates are more than full. 250,000 subscribers in the first month, and they have enough to do as it is. I hate to use a "when it's done" rule, but that's what it comes to.
19. Stop fixing exploits that only certain people can do until you get the problems that effect each one of your paying customers straightened out. Getting really sick of seeing "this type of mission was nerfed cause some sneaky SOB made alot of money" while I am picking up my factory every time i want to use it or stuck in limbo for 10 minutes waiting for leaves to fall. Prioritize. When everything works, then you can start balancing stuff.
Cheaters ruin the game for everyone. It's a dynamic game, and things will always be broken. EQ has been around for years, and there is an equal amount of balancing and bugfixing still. Same with DAoC, AC, AO, and the others. Beyond that, this is not an architect issue, like you stated. This is a Customer Service one, and more a complaint at that. Besides, if that exploit was in there still, it can easily hide bugs and real issues. One person who makes 10 million credits in two days, then tells ten people, and suddenly there's a credit flood. We'd make more, but be able to buy less.
20. Please make our factory smaller or make it take up 1 unit of aloted land space. It only makes a little deed that is 1 foot to a side if you drop it in your house. Our class requires the most resources of any other to build something, yet we are delegated to having the least lots for our harvs due to factory size. Not fair and not well thought out.
I like having a large factory, personally. It stands out, it looks unique, and it's only used by one profession. We are the only ones who need it, so someone can tell that an Archetect is around. Sometimes that helps business. As for lot size, I guess I never noticed that, I thought it took 1 as well. We are dictated to less harvesters, but honestly, can we even place enough to keep with maximum output? I have 50 lots at my disposal through my PA, and I still run into resource crunches at times.
I agree more with the "grant Architects more lots as they progress" train of though. Gee, construction would bea great palce to put this bonus. Merchants get extra people to drop down and sell, why can't we get extra spots to drop down and build.
Thats it. Enough of my ranting. Maybe some dev on his coffee break will see this and go wow what a moron, and tell his other dev buddies about it so they will read it and say wow what a moron, but maybe they will fix one of the issues. And yeah other classes need alot more work then us, but hey I aint browsing thier forum right now.
-Oldman Rakon
Master Architect (Bloodfin)
These responses are to a post made by Otakahn. It was an excellent post I just have a few devil's advocate responses and an Amen.
"2) Schematics In the "Master Artisans" Should be relocated.
The Architect skills are unbalanced.A playerneedsa few morenovice skills (Such as Droid Engineer) and the Master Artisan title just to be able to solo Architect without the need of Artisan providers. There are about 5 schematics of general Crafting items (power cores, Electronic GP Modules, ect) under the Master Artisan Title. This eats 57 skill points for Master Artisan + 6 skill points for Novice Droid Engineer (Droid Storage Modules used for harvesters) and 15 Skill Points used for Scout (Used for harvesting Hide for most furniture items). Yet to become a Novice Architect alone you only need35 skill points.
The pointmade here is that many Architects feel it isdifficult to keep a buisness and profession such as Architecture and hold some of there own elite skills to fend for themselves from there enemies in the Galaxy we live in. There are numerous dangers in the world and since players must go more than 1000m away from a city to build a home and start a buisness, players need more protection and players who want to be Architects just dont' have enough skill points for that. The skill points either must be raised or simply move all schematics from the Master Artisan Title to the engineer columns and divide them accordingly, most of us don't need these things until we make Novice Architect anyways (include teh schematics for Droid Storage Modules for harvesters too)."
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I have to say I agree with the line of thinking. However, most of my apprenticeship points came from training people in all of the artisan skills. I also have Master Artisan to pick up the Merchant skills. The only column I dont use really is the Domestic skills. I have grabbed my fair share of points from training people to be Master Artisans.
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"2-When constructing items and not just installations or houses, mostly components, if you press enter before the crating tool finishes loading/crafting, sometimes the components you plug into the ingredient Slots are lost or hidden andthe must wait about 20min after log so they may reappear. Otherwise they appear gone. This needs to get fixed."
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I just close the crafting window and start with another tool. When I do get stuck if I go outside and target something for whatever reason my tool starts working again. You dont even have to shoot it just be more then 50 meters away out of range and then tab and then peace. I dont know if this works for everybody but enough people have told me about it to make me think that it does work for everyone.
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"4-Resource Shifting way too much I know I said I was'nt going to be redundant but this actually has put me temporarily out of buisness because once a resource changes the machine stops harvesting completly. And since I calculate how much ore I will need the next day to make the money I want, I tend to go bankrupt because the harvester stopped harvesting my ore/Non-Ferrious Metals simply because the resource changed. Then I dont' have the money to maintain my harvesters and they go into disrepair. I realize it's a bug but it's very very serious and needs to be fixed asap."
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Amen. I am sick of resources rolling over at 4am or later when most people would be sleeping and wouldnt be out checking harvesters. I would like Dev'sto addan emailjust like factories and other transactions sent us and in game tell when our harvesters stop working. If they cant get to fixing the shifting every other day or so then they should at least give us a way to know how much we have lost. My harvesters are atm over 4000 meters from the nearest city so before I go trek out there I would like to know what I need to bring. I do always bring extra power and even have extra deeds but sometimes I am tight on cash would be nice to know that I need to run missions or sell something before checking them. While I am griping perhaps they could let us have a remote way of knowing harvester status at all times like something added to the datapad? Probably those things are too much trouble but it would be nice.
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"6-Nerf Wooly Hide from couches and most furniture
maybe im a bad hunter but killing durnis and other wooly creatures seem more trouble to me than killing gubbers or lizards and such. I dont' know, but I can't seem to find enough wooly hide to make counches and other furniture at a factory paced rate. I can have like 50 sofa chairs but only 2 large beds simply because it requires wooly hide. Make all hide usable for even complex items if possible. I mostly see leathery types and Bristly types on corellia, and on other planets it seems to be the same song. Either make more wooly creatures more plentful or simply nerf it and make all hide available to use on any furniture that requires it. Quality does'nt seem to matter anyways."
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Well I feel the same way but if my guildmates want these items then they can help with the gathering of leather. I have a lot of guild mates that Live on Endor and Dath when they arent at the guild hall. This isnt the case for everyone but if people want your goods and the discounts that come with helping you out then they will see that you get those supplies.
The reason people are screaming on the boards is because if it isnt a warrior skill being nerfed or bugged it seems to get no attention. The Harvesting Mechanism bug for instance was well known in Beta and yet made into the game and took two months to fix. Also House admin rights same thing. Factories well what can I say. Oh I know.... *edits* Instead of fixing it they waited until people lost thousands of credits and supplies to stop charging us to redeed. This is an ok fix but have you ever tried redeeding when there are nests and other things near your Structure factory? I have to call three guild mates to come help me clear out everything so I can put the factory back. I also have an Equipment factory and it's nowhere near the pain to redeed and put back. Ok that's enough griping.
I really do love this game. I love all the attention to detail with the graphics. I love thekeyword emotes. Oh anda question for all you big business architects. Is there a way to seperate tells from specific people so I dont have to misstell detailed things to the fifty people that want my attention? lol
Rov Toksi
Master Architect/Master Artisan
As a new Architect my biggest concern is will there be customers for me or those that become Architects after me?
If the market reaches saturation level (which is not too far away on Starsider imho) there will not be enough business to support the number of Architects currently on the server, let alone any new ones.
We need a craftable line that is decayable or better yet consumeable. If we had the opportunity to create Fuel Cells for structures (and vehicles maybe?) at least we could create something that would support the more elusive structure and furniture sales.
To item #6 Decay and what items I would like to see decay over time:
Houses and Harvesters.
If they decayed at a rate of 2% every 24 hours while not in deed form then it would create a large enough turnover roughly 50 days before a harvester dies out. This would create a large enough turnover to support some architects at least. Houses at a 1% rate. This would allow for a decent enough turnover also.
You know what, I heard there is away to seperate the tells. I think you have to create an Alias or something like that. You can explore it by typing /command I think, im not sure, I'll check tomarrow and see where i seen this. Otherwise many of us mis tell because we usually type reply at the time another sends a tell message to us so it resets who we are speaking to and we reply with the message we type. I usually try typing the name but some of my friends names are too long or rediculously hard to type effectivly fast enough. I think if we figure out the alias. But like I said, im not sure. Thanks for the comments Ethercat
Otakahn
I vote NO for house decay that requires a visit from an Architect. I am 2 spots from Master Architect. I don't want hundreds of tells a night asking me to come to their house. I don't want that kind of torture. You people are crazy.
I would rather have house repair kits like they do weapon and armor and clothing repair kits I can make and sell and let the people do their own repairs.
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Q-3PO wrote (6-25-03):
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6) Architecture Decay – Addition of system for items created by architect to decay. This provides a lasting source of revenue for the architect.
This is also something we’ll have to research. This is a pretty large change to the system, but something we also agree on. What types of things would you like to see decay?
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i'm TOTALLY into this. i think that all the architects are. it's seems to be about the only cure for the market as is. (definitely the only practicable fix. players would through a fit about all the other fixes i can think of.) i don't know about you guys, but i'm having an ESPECIALLY hard time in Eclipse. Implementing decay provides the perfect way to start making experimentation matter in the architect profession.
my question is this: "Why hasn't this been done yet?"
i could make a sarcastic list of things that you might be waiting for, but i really want to know what the hold up is.
what do i want to decay? everything. this could lead to houses that are built better decaying more slowly. guild halls (because they are built by a master architect who knows their stuff and has a lot of experimentation points.) would decay quite slowly. and a master architect could make a really nice small house. but a small house that a noob makes, and is selling for cheap because he's desperate, would decay after. . . . some months, depending on how much correction you guys deem the market to need.
masters could make more efficient harvesters that would either require less maintenance, or less power, or harvest more minerals. or some combination of all of these. when i say more, i mean more than a novice, not necessarily more than now. the storage on these harvesters could vary.
i think that designing houses would be cool, and it's been mentioned before, but that's a huge feature addition. It seems like the game was designed for this extension of decay system to the architect profession from other professions. whether this decay should be counteracted by personal repairs by and architect, a repair tool of some sort, or whether they just die and get to be replaced, i don't care. action needs to be taken, soon
Then if you say no to decay give another example to what should replace it? Every one should buy new houses or have thier house fixed. Its a fact of life. Its a fact of SWG to have things break and then need them to be fixed. Please dev's try not to make the game some fantacy world for peoples whims and wants but instead a place where it reflects the chalenges of real life.
If people cant pay to have thier house fixed then it will just challenge them to learn how to complete a mission. Money is not a problem in this game and should not be an issue when it comes to Decay. Having 1 item for all time with out it needing repair is lame and promotes a very stagnent economy.
Decay is good. Trix's are good. Very Stagnent economy is bad!