Architect Archive

How are you experimenting - do you fill all the boxes and pray or do you fill a couple of boxes at a time ?

I usually use 3 boxes then 2 and when 2 for the end if I've not reached a ber 13 I will experiment 1 box at a time until I do. I have found this to cut down my CF's even though it really should increase the changes of CF'ing due to more attempts at clicking.

There is current an 'In development' thread all about eperimentation failures and results, if you think architects have it bad with the ber dropping when failing on storage, give a thought to the weaponsmith and othedr crafters that have 4 areas of experimentation to effect.

Remember that a BER 13 Heavy minerial harvester is complexity of 42, which to my way of thinking does make it more difficult to make than something of complexity 18 ! and so should be a challenge to make.

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LadyGrey wrote:

This is from the web page for WOW:

"Recipes will work every time. If you collect the proper ingredients to create an item, you don't have to worry about them being wasted due to failures. There's also no need to constantly experiment in World of Warcraft to find a combination of ingredients that will work. A recipe clearly lists what it will allow you to create and what raw materials are required. There's no guesswork (or surfing through dozens of Web sites) involved ..."

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Meaning any monkey can make the same products you can.

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swg-albert wrote:

This is most likely a bug. Good Luck getting it fixed. The critical failure thing seems to run in streaks. By streak, I mean if it starts happening to you one night, just quit because it will keep happening that night. I can sometimes go for a couple weeks without having one of those nights. But when it happens, I can't make it stop. On those nights, everything structural I try gets failures in the 2nd or 3rd experimentation try.

My workaround -- kick the living crap out of something (NOT YOUR DOG or your neighbor's either) and come back and craft it tomorrow.

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I'm glad you said this. I've also noticed horrible CF "streaks," and thought I was losing my mind. I have experienced the same thing as you describe here, though. Sometimes I CF over and over, sometimes I CF once or twice all night. It's infuriating...master crafters should have a failure rate of well under 1%, or what's the use of being a master?

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LadyGrey wrote:

This is from the web page for WOW:

"Recipes will work every time. If you collect the proper ingredients to create an item, you don't have to worry about them being wasted due to failures. There's also no need to constantly experiment in World of Warcraft to find a combination of ingredients that will work. A recipe clearly lists what it will allow you to create and what raw materials are required. There's no guesswork (or surfing through dozens of Web sites) involved ..."

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I have to say that I agree with this policy entirely. This makes the game...FUN. You dont have to spend days, weeks, or sometimes months to find rare and important ingredients for your crafting and worry the entire time whether or not you'll fail on the assembly or experimentation. I hated this aspect of EverQuest, I hate this aspect of Star Wars Galaxies. I play games to have fun. Critical failures suck. Suckage = no fun. Activites that are no fun do not belong in games. Period. This doesn't add to the challenge of the game, because I've already faced the challenge by getting the ingredients. This doesn't add anything to the game but anger and frustration. Critical failure should be removed from the game. Barring that, the CF rate, especially for master crafters, should be reduced to something like .0003%.

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Chewie101 wrote:

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LadyGrey wrote:

This is from the web page for WOW:

"Recipes will work every time. (snip)..."

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Meaning any monkey can make the same products you can.

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You mean to tell me that you can't do that in SWG? Give me a break.

Allow me to slide you a free clue: any monkey can make any item in the game right now. And anyone who doubts me only has to speak to any hologrinder to find out how real that sad truth is. All you have to do is spend between 12 and 48 hours in AFK grinding to be that monkey. Pathetic but true. Part of what is holding this game down is the holocron (soon to be nerfed, and good riddance to bad rubbish) and the ability to AFK grind through professions.

The point of having different professions is so that people can find a niche and play their game the way they want to...not to parade your wares around as if what you make in the game makes you extra special. This kind of uber mentality does nothing but make life difficult for those of us who actually are interested in playing the game because we enjoy it...not because it makes us feel as though simply because we can craft some special item in cyberspace makes us successful human beings.

Critical failures get right up my nostril. There's no reason for them. They make *everyone* miserable. Take them out. Nerf them. But something has to be done.

Fishfingerbutty, you're not imagining things. All crafters share your pain!

Except those, of course, who will be playing WoW.

May the Force be with you.

Thanks for all your thoughts folks. I'm going to hold off making any more heavies until I get master for two reasons -

1. Those extra 10 points may have made the diffenece between a BER 12 and BER 13

2. I simply can't afford to make any more heavies anyway seeing as I'm living under the arch of one of the buildings in theed, sat on an old blanket with an underfed Hurrton beside me shouting 'Big Issue'!

I still cant believe I blew 150k of ore and loads of factory runs with nothing to show for it. Saying that I did once blow £400 in one night in Copenhagen........ but thats another story entirely.

I'm also going to quit if I get 2 crits in a row and go kill something, then try again.

Skill Tapes.........sounds like a good idea too - decent ones are rare and expensive though (

Thanks again folks,

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BidoXP wrote:

well i justlearnt heavy harvestors last nite. i spent the previous day preparing all the components and collecting resources only to find several components need to be in factory crates. SWGCRAFT mentioned nothing about crates

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although they don't actually have to be IN thecrates, however they DO need to be made in a factory in a single run with the same serial number. That is what is meant by the term 'identical'. But, all your effort is not wasted, the only part that is not usable elsewhere (for example in a medium harvester) would be the 'main' sub-component, i.e. the ore mining unit/turbo fluid drill pump/manufacturing mechanism, etc. (the bit you need 2 identicals of that can be experimented).

It seems to me a bit stupid that these can even be made by hand, since hand made units of these (meaning they are singles) cannot be used for a single darn thing as far as I can tell. Would have been better if the option only came to create a schematic and not to make a prototype.

(Oh, and btw, if you had not experimented your main sub-components up as far as you could go then they were probably pretty worthless anyway, if you didn't do that then your experience has probably helped you as you will not have wasted all the rest of the resources/components making a dud harvester)

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Perilous wrote:

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Chewie101 wrote:

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LadyGrey wrote:

This is from the web page for WOW:

"Recipes will work every time. (snip)..."

---

Meaning any monkey can make the same products you can.

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You mean to tell me that you can't do that in SWG? Give me a break.

Allow me to slide you a free clue: any monkey can make any item in the game right now. And anyone who doubts me only has to speak to any hologrinder to find out how real that sad truth is. All you have to do is spend between 12 and 48 hours in AFK grinding to be that monkey. Pathetic but true. Part of what is holding this game down is the holocron (soon to be nerfed, and good riddance to bad rubbish) and the ability to AFK grind through professions.

The point of having different professions is so that people can find a niche and play their game the way they want to...not to parade your wares around as if what you make in the game makes you extra special. This kind of uber mentality does nothing but make life difficult for those of us who actually are interested in playing the game because we enjoy it...not because it makes us feel as though simply because we can craft some special item in cyberspace makes us successful human beings.

Critical failures get right up my nostril. There's no reason for them. They make *everyone* miserable. Take them out. Nerf them. But something has to be done.

Fishfingerbutty, you're not imagining things. All crafters share your pain!

Except those, of course, who will be playing WoW.

May the Force be with you.

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Im not saying that only certain people should be able to make certain products but there should be a way to differentiate your products form someone elses.I spend time expirementing on layered comp armor and figure how to get a few extra points of resist on the armor where some people use crap resources to make whatever they can. I think I should have a better product in the end that can sell for more. In WoW it wont matter because all the end products will be exactly the same.

I have never enjoyed crafting until I played this game.

The extra Assembly and Experimentation points make a *big* difference in the Master Box. I only recently achieved Master Architect, and while it was relatively easy to score BER 10 Mediums at 4-4-4-3, I never hit a BER 13 heavy. I use the absolute best material. Using the same stuff I got my mediums to BER 10 with a point or 2 left over for the hopper size, I could *not* score a 13 on a heavy.

After Master, I've only failed to hit 13 on maybe 1 in 5.

Message Edited by Greatsails on 02-04-2004 09:06 AM

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Chewie101 wrote:

Im not saying that only certain people should be able to make certain products but there should be a way to differentiate your products form someone elses.I spend time expirementing on layered comp armor and figure how to get a few extra points of resist on the armor where some people use crap resources to make whatever they can. I think I should have a better product in the end that can sell for more. In WoW it wont matter because all the end products will be exactly the same.

I have never enjoyed crafting until I played this game.

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Exactly. Most MMORPG crafters are either alts, maxed characters with nothing else to do, or the rare personwho actually enjoys making thingsdespite the fact that they have nothing extra toshow for their dedication.

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Perilous wrote:

You mean to tell me that you can't do that in SWG? Give me a break.

Allow me to slide you a free clue: any monkey can make any item in the game right now. And anyone who doubts me only has to speak to any hologrinder to find out how real that sad truth is. All you have to do is spend between 12 and 48 hours in AFK grinding to be that monkey. Pathetic but true. Part of what is holding this game down is the holocron (soon to be nerfed, and good riddance to bad rubbish) and the ability to AFK grind through professions.

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Your "any monkey" is going to be prevalent in WoW if their crafting systemcomes out the waythey hype. Now I realize that probably most of the people who play prefer to be able to roll up an alt who can do all those crafty things so they don't have to go to the trouble of finding a crafter. That is why WoW is designing their system that way...to appeal to the majority who really just want to go hunt PvE mobs all day long.

The nice thing about SWG crafting is yes, anybody can grind their way up to obtain the "Master" title. But you actually have to have some dedication to the craft to beGOOD at it.

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Sneezy wrote:

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Chewie101 wrote:

Your "any monkey"

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Hold on just a second, and allow me to remind you that it is not *my* "any monkey." It was Chewie's monkey, and I was merely responding to his/her post. Please do not put words in my mouth, but read the thread.

That being said, both you and Chewie both make excellent points, and I understand what you mean, and agree with some of what you say, at least in concept.

However, critical failures have nothing to do with being dedicated to your profession. The fact still remains that anyone...and I mean anyone...who puts their mind to it can make exactly the same stuff that you can. It's unfortunate if that takes something from the psychological aspect of your game enjoyment, but facts are facts, and that's all there is to it. Anyone can make anything in any game, provided they have the desire to do so.

Some people don't enjoy crafting and so play other classes. Some people don't enjoy anything *but* crafting. Some people like to check out every single profession and class available in every game, and even if they don't remain in one class for very long, they are able, and in a short period of time, to make the best and most complicated items in the game and then move on to explore new territory.

That, in fact, is what the current Jedi system is based on.

Critical failures bring nothing useful to any game environment. They bring aggravation, unhappiness, and frustration. They make people angry, dejected, disappointed, and in some cases, even decide to quit the game. How can any of this be a good thing?

I have never, ever, in the 25 years of mass roleplay and then online gaming (and I remember when MUDs and MODs first hit the stage way back in the day), ever encountered any crafter, dedicated, casual, or otherwise, who has ever said "YES! FIFTH CRITICAL FAIL IN A ROW! Now THIS is was gaming is all about!"

If something in a game gives a negative enough effect to actually cause players to completely lose interest in playing it, and the overwhelming majority of those people who stay to bitterly complain about it and dread it and totally hate it, then it's a severely flawed part of the game design and SHOULD BE REMOVED.

You can say the same thing with shuttle wait times. In all the years of bitter complaining of waiting for the EQ boats, the EQ team finally made instant transportation available. I am nothing less than astounded that this exact same downtime...10 minutes instead of the original 20 (!!!) minute wait in EQ this time...has been not only included in SWG but actually defended as a Good Thing (tm). It makes utterly no sense, adds nothing beneficial to the game, and it is absolutely no fun. I can't think of the number of times when a shuttle wait of 8 or 9 minutes has made me log in disgust. If that's something the dev team intended to happen, then I, for one, would dearly love to know the reason they think alienating and angering a good portion of their player base is something they need to achieve.

Your dedication to your craft has nothing to do with critical failures, and everything to do with your willingness to expend the time and effort it takes to make the most rare and wonderful of player crafted items your profession can make. At the same time, you also have the right to enjoy the game. I do not, and cannot, and probably will never be able to believe, that a part of your game fun is those critical fails that have just ruined three weeks...or a month or more...of searching and fighting and haggling to get the extremely rare and important items you need to craft your merchandise. That, in fact, is where the fun lies. Not in seeing "you fail!" when you finally, at long last, come to create the item.

Added to that is the fact that it's a wholly unrealistic portion of the entire crafting system. In the real world, any fashion designer who makes a blouse...especially a blouse they have been making since they first started training in their chosen field...will tell you that they rarely "critical fail" or in other words, really mess up badly enough to throw away, this blouse.

Translate that fashion designer into the master tailor of SWG and you will find out that the critical fail rate in no way reflects that real life experience.

Now, SWG is not real life. However, the immersion and realism of the SWG universe is a major pinpoint of the devs' checkpoint detail list when it comes to creating, tweaking, and addressing all game systems. If you are going to create a satisfying, rewarding, realistic game world that is also FUN (remember, this is a GAME), then you can't go around throwing unrealistic critical failure rates into the game and then saying "no, no, everything is working just as it should be" when almost the entire affected population of the gaming community is shrieking about how horrible that particular aspect of the game is. Not if you want to keep players playing.

The critical fail rate is not only game breaking but game stopping. If it wasn't, then the architect profession wouldn't have seen a removal of assembly failures on all major items. This is a quickfix solution to a badly broken critical failure system. The devs have started their own research on the whole CF system, and they have an open thread discussing it right now, because they DO care about the player base, they ARE acknowledging that CF systems are badly broken right now, and they are trying to find out a reasonable way to fix the system so that people aren't miserably unhappy when they are forced to confront it.

I personally believe that the best option would be to take this system OUT of the game. It is entirely negative, has utterly no positive aspects whatsoever, and is completely un-fun. If I fail at that Uber Thing I was crafting, I'm going to gnash my teeth and get a headache and yell and complain and resent the dev team for allowing this kind of nonsense to occur. And then I have three choices: quit the game, quit the profession, or do the whole thing all over again.

Not a single one of these options will leave me in a positive mood, will give me a positive experience, or will remove the resentment and dissatisfaction with which I regard the dev team and the game itself over the situation.

How is any of this beneficial? How can it be defended as an important and necessary part of the game?

To put it simply, it cannot. It is an indefensible game system, and it has no place in any game world.

Although I doubt very highly that I will be playing WoW as a paying customer, I will hopefully be beta testing it. And I wholeheartedly applaud their decision not to have critical failures in the game. All I can say about it is, it's about **edit** time.

I am hoping that after reviewing the input and having more dialogue with the player community, the dev team will once again rise to the occasion, meet the challenge, and at least come back with a system, if the CF rates must remain a part of the game, whereby the players are not as frequently hit and as harsly treated as they are with the current CF system. I see, for one thing, that certain rare ingredients will be returned. I see a reduction in the rate as far as frequency. There may even be some sort of level based incremental lowering of CF rate or increase of defense against CF rate, as one advances in any given crafting profession.

The dev team is working as fast as they can to address issues. This game is really still in beta, and it will be for a couple years. I've said that repeatedly. I have not always agreed with the decisions of the dev team, and I am very frequently extremely frustrated with this game, but I see the potential and I have great hopes, and I still almost entirely admire the efforts of the dev team to try to make things right. They aren't perfect, but they really do try their best, and nobody can ask for anything more.

Crafting that uber suit of RIS is an extremely admirable achievement for any master armoursmith. But remember, if you had to go through 10 years of blood, sweat, pain, and rage to get all the pieces, only to see your hard work fail at the end during the final combine due to a badly skewed game system, it really isn't worth the effort or the ulcer. And whether you fail or you succeed, it still doesn't make you a better human being either way. What makes you a good human being is the way you treat other people and the way you treat and interact with the rest of the world around you, whether it's in cyberspace or not, and just because someone's managed to gain a master title in an elite profession doesn't mean that makes them a superior mortal.

Critical fails are, at last, on the table, and the devs and the players are working out the issues. I've submitted my feedback, tried to be helpful, and am willing to do my part in testing anything that needs to be tested. I would, in fact, still be on test center if it would only stop crashing to the desktop every time I launched it. I am a hardcore crafter, and I always have enjoyed crafting more than fighting by far. I am a dire enemy of the critical failure, though, and my dream as a crafter is to see that demon entirely dismissed from my world.

I'm looking forward to see what the dev team finally decides to do, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will be a successful resolution.

May the Force be with you.

Perilous
Master Architect T Master Merchant T Master Kvetcher
The Perilous Freakashack East: Just outside CDeli City, Naboo at 1200, 6100
An Age Is Not Dark Because There Is No Light, But Because People Refuse To See It