Architect Archive
Thread: Architect Issues Designer responses
5.) I havn't seen any improvment in crit fails at all sense the patch. Just tonight in ten minutes I failed on three items, and one was a wall, which really pisses me off, because I can't make the **edit** heavy harvestor now. If the devs think adjusting the crit rate is the answer they are sorely mistaken. A new system needs to be implemented. There have been lots of people that have good ideas for a new systems. Use one. I don't want to have the power to click away thousands of resources when I don't want to. It's just retarded. Don't the devs play the game at all? Have any of them had the chance to test out architecture yet? I would like to see anyone of them recover from crit fails that plague every one else. CSR agents can create deeds, lets give them the same chance to crit fail as a player does, just to show them how often it happens.
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Crafting station 16.1
Crafting Tool 12.5
Unit Toughness 856
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This is BS.
I completely fail to understand why there are people posting on the architect board that they want large harvesters to either decay or be unredeedable.
This is the architect forum people. You know, architects...the single class that needs the most resources in the game.
It is difficult enough for an architect to accumulate enough material to upgrade all their harvesters to large while running a business. And some of you want this to happen every resource cycle??? You would drive every independant architect out of business if this change was to go in.
Think before you post, people.
Deoka wrote:I completely fail to understand why there are people posting on the architect board that they want large harvesters to either decay or be unredeedable.
This is the architect forum people. You know, architects...the single class that needs the most resources in the game.
It is difficult enough for an architect to accumulate enough material to upgrade all their harvesters to large while running a business. And some of you want this to happen every resource cycle??? You would drive every independant architect out of business if this change was to go in.
Think before you post, people.
The fact is that, unless these things decay, the game world will eventually hit a maximum capacity. The market as it stands is going to cease to exist down the line; The things never need replacing, barring someone not getting online forever, screwing up their maint payments, etc. You may be selling the things now - hey, I am too - but down the road there's going to be so many out there that it's going to become purely a resell market.
People are thinking before they're posting. Sure, not every idea is perfect, but so what? This issue needs to be addressed, even though it's going to create a necessary hassle in-game. Otherwise you'll be left with your never-decaying, always-reliable heavy harvesters sitting in your bank in deed form because you can't compete with resellers undercutting your prices to the scant few newbies on the server who plan on jumping into a crowded tradeskill field.
Deoka wrote:
I completely fail to understand why there are people posting on the architect board that they want large harvesters to either decay or be unredeedable.
All structures will need to exhibit decay for the architect profession to remain viable in the long term. A saturation barrier will eventually arrive where everybody has everything they need, and will never have to replace it. There's no getting around this in a world with a finite player base and no structure decay. All the immediate fixes and worries etc are relevant, but this is the long term professionkiller that will need to be addressed. The earlier it gets implemented, the less painful all round.
Having said that, every resource cycle or unredeemable harvesters is a little on the side of overkill. 
Xek.
I am totally opposed to decay in any form on architect products.
Housing - Houses are a luxury item for everyone except merchants. People are already paying maintenance on them. Adding more irritations to their use will not help us sell any more of them.
Furniture - Furniture is a luxury item for everyone. Some people love decorating houses (proven in both UO and Sims Online) and spend hours,and evendays, getting everything just right. Making furniture go poof is just wrong. These same people like to redecorate from time to time. We will always have a thriving furniture market.
Harvesters - A necessity for crafters and resource sellers. But, while other crafters could get by with personals if necessary architects cannot. Decay on harvesters would hurt us more than help us. Making large harvesters unredeedable as one person in this thread suggested would not only be the nail in the coffin for independant architects, but would totally destroy the market we have selling them right now. Who is going to pay 80k + to replace a large harvester every week? Not anyone I know....
Thank you for posting the Dev replies.
A reply to the response with the requestedinformation will be prepared in the morning.
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Q-3PO wrote:
Big thanks to Zarcath for compiling these issues. Here are the designers’ responses to the top 5 issues (optional 6th is the Correspondent’s pet issue). Our next publish focuses heavily on overall profession issues. We also should be hiring an assistant community manager soon to be in more frequent and direct contact with you.
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I'd like to point out that the Architect community was very split on what was considered our top 5 issues, and Zarcath submitted these without the community's approval or feedback. All of the issues represented his personal viewpoints on his first report. Subsequent weeks he demonstrated more of a restraint and did a fairly good job of surmising what the community provided as feedback. However, the first report was basically his OWN viewpoint.
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1) Power Core and Harvesting Mechanism –
a) Power Core - 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.
b) 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.
We’ll need to look into this, it sounds like a bug. Which schematics are you receiving the “Unable to start crafting session” from?
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There is absolutely NO EXCUSE WHATSOEVER for this bug not to be fixed immediately. This bug was reported numerous times ad nauseum from early beta, throughout the first weeks of release, and continues. It's been ignored by the devs, and now we are to believe this is a total surprise to the development team. A brief and cursory review of ANY architect forum from this site to the less popular fan sites to swgcraft.com will reveal this bug has been a thorn in our side since beta. Fix it please.
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2) Maintenance Status - There have been varying reports of Harvesters using maintenance at a higher rate then what is displayed in the information window.
This is something we need to investigate. It might be something related to how time works in the game.
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Having maintained a daily spreadsheet on my harvesters since release, I don't believe this is an accurate assumption. What I have found is that power depletes faster then the rate of consumption. In addition, that rate is dependent on the kind of energy used for power. Finally, server downtime skews maintenance times.
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3) Reclaiming Maintenance and Power - Add the options to remove maintenance and power from all buildings that require upkeep. Many players will often find themselves moving harvesters or houses to more ideal locations, harvesters especially with the dynamic resources. This can result in lost power resources and credits due to resource shifts.
This is actually pretty involved. There are issues to where the money goes when you redeed the structure that we’ll have to solve. But we do like the idea, and will look into this. J
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My personal viewpoint and shared by many, is that this may not be necessary at all.
A far less complicated process to implement and save development on reworking the system already in place is to scale it up to include:
Harvestor readouts or system email for Harvestors placed, that resources are diminishing. You can not completely remove the money sinks in the harvestors that may be lost due to frantic movements or changing locations. That is part of the risk.
Moving houses are not urgent. The players SHOULD plan their maintenance costs if they are also planning a move. This is a money sink which the game needs.
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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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This is by far the most controversial issue submitted by Zarcath and is his own PERSONAL issue. I sure would not like to see the ENTIRE system changed on ONE person's viewpoint or opinion (including my own).
NOW FOR MY PET PEEVE AND ALL TIME HIGHEST ON MY LIST OF BUGS...
PLEASE FIX THE ELEVATOR BUG IN THE PA HALLS. THIS IS STILL NOT FIXED EVEN THOUGH YOU GAVE US A PATCH THAT SAID IT WAS. I WOULD BE HAPPY TO PROVE THIS TO ANY DEVELOPER ON MY TIME.
I am 100% against housing decay. There is a maintenance cost already associated with the house and that should cover any 'decay' the house may have. Want fewer houses? Raise the maintenance cost.
Right now you can't turn around on Sunrunner without running into an architect. I know this because I was in the top 10 of architects hitting master and have watched our profession grow in the extreme. That is why there are so many houses out there right now. They are sold well below value so everyone and their droid owns one now. To compensate for that, make the maintenance fees higher on the houses. Make it so owning one requires some real effort.
How, after reading the report, can anyone miss the whole 'harvesting mechanism schematic doesn't load' issue?????? Every architect, and their droid, has said something about it. It was well written and detailed in the architect report.
I have seen NO fixes on the critical failures as I still fail 1/10 or even 1/5 tries. More often than not, it is 1 out of 5. I have my tools and crafting station maxxed in experimental values and quality. I've failed on large houses. I DON'T want that adrenaline rush someone mentioned when assembling a PA hall. I want the deed. Hours of work goes into those and there should be no failure possibility on them. I am a friggen master... I've done the work and hard times scratching out ore from the hard Tatooine ground. I shouldn't fail on making items at all.
Another issue:
Please make it so factorys take factory made crates. The maximum number of walls I can make is 9 because of the 100 item max input hopper. I have to manually remove each structure module from the crate it was in, drag it to the input hopper and then press go. That is 90 structure modules. I think I may be getting carpel tunnel syndrome.... Please please please make factories recognize crates and the items in them.
I am new to these boards..hope to stay on to bring another voice, point of view etc.. so hello everyone.
I just want to say that I see a lot of people getting mad...alot!
I am one of those too but realize that in this era we are living in the customer is NEVER right and should be smacked for even wanting satisfaction....
Here's my point of view however....(smack)
I signed on for the Architect business hoping I could build things with my mind, you know. That is what an architect does...Iam not an architect, none of us are!!!!! What do we design? All together now...NOTHIING!
We are laborers...can I get my 30 bucks for hauling resources and building crap a 7 year old can do, I know because my 7 year old son has a character in this game. He can do it...just doesnt have the skill to make enough money as an architect...which makes me very angry too...I make no money compared to the brainless types who go off and fight...what the #@#%###%##%#^ is that all about?
I became an artisan to make money and have to sell 20k houses for 9.5 to 11k and 100k houses for 70k !!!I you add up the time and MONEY it takes to build a medium house and then subtract to arrive at a net profit you will find you would be far more rich taking STILL overpowered and seemingly perfectly obedient rancors around killing crap.
SO I cannot design and I work harder, much harder and make less money? I'm sorry folks but this is moronic...I have a reason for wanting to be an architect still...but please developers, do not think you know what an architect is or does. Your clueless.Architects should be the very wealthiest of trades...not saying that cause I am one...Saying that because most the people playing this game are not paying the developerssecrataries super high salaries but thedevelopers themselves super high salaries right? Thats it Thank you.
PS I have no way of showing people the few cookie cutter designs they say I create and cannot even have them walk to it and show them as an artisan with houses is impossible for a non guilded non exploiter non rich in RL person.
Just curious. Harvesting Mechanisms did work for at least a while correct?
I tried to make them on and off for a couple of weeks. Finally ran across another arch, and thinking maybe it was just me that was bugged asked if he would make me a schematic and put it in my factory. He said sure. He was very surprised that he couldn't load the schematic either. Then.. checking his inventory found he had previously made two and gave me one of them.
So I have one now. When did these work? Wish we knew then. Could have just churned out a few hundred each.
I do find that it is less than comforting that this has been broken for weeks now though and we get a response of. Hmm.. might be a bug. Which schematic is it? uhmm....
Thank you for asking about our concerns. *smiles*
I love architecture, but given the low market prices, high cost of resources (ore), factory problems, and failure rates, it isn't a wise career choice right now. While armorsmiths and weaponsmiths are getting 10-40 credits per resource, we often charge between 3-5 credits per resource despite the many failures and losses due to factory problems. Most folks charge 3-10 credits per resource for ore and other architectural resources, making it very hard to break even over time, much less grow if you have a highrate of consumption.
I haven't posted or complained about the problems since beta because other gameplay issues were of greater importance. Now that we're beginning to discuss the urban planner elite skill, it is time to resolve these problems.
The good news: my input hoppers are working on my fully loaded, new structure and furniture crafting tool. Unfortunately, I don't feel comfortable putting anything in it as I saw them work during beta, then stop working for months. *grins* I'd hate to lose my high quality resources.
Critical failure rates seemslightlybetter, but are still too frequent. I haven't had any materials returned to me, but luckily did not fail on the last two pa halls I made. I did fail on a couple of crafting stations with high quality, fully experimented, optional components. After an hour of experimenting to get the highest possible stats on every component, I was irritated at these losses. No components were left in the schematic upon failure, either.
I saw a post about returning 20-80% of our materials upon failure with the greatest rate of return awarded for low complexity items. Returning 20% of a pa hall's resources upon failure is a bad idea.I'd rather lose a structure module than a PA hall any day. It takes a long time to amass that many resources and make the items, especially given the quirks of today's factories.
Friends have failed on the final assembly of 3+ large houses in the past week. Inless than aweek, I failed on two medium mineral harvesters, two solar generators, 9 generator turbines, and so many walls that I refuse to make the walls by hand any more. After making 20 medium harvesters, one chemical harvester, and 10 solar generators, I no longer manufacture andsellinstallations. My failure rate is at least 10-20% as a master architect, sometimes higher. As a low level architect, I never failed on small or medium houses and I madedozens of them.
So as we gain in skill, we become inept at manufacturinglow level structure modules, wall modules, andsimple components. This system seems to be backwards. We shouldhave few or no failures on low complexity items as a master architect.
Regarding power core units, I have to plan on making 2-3 times the number of power core units I need because 1-2 of them are eaten by the factory and the job stopsevery 4-5 units, soI can't do a larger run to reduce the impact of the loss. Friends told me that they redeeded their structure factories numerous times to get a load of 4 power core units to manufacture with few or no losses. That is hard to do since I pre-pay my factories 1-2 weeks in advance and like my location.
When you select the harvesting mechanism schematic, it just spins. It never worked for me during beta either prior to two different wipes, and this is my third architect.
Furniture does have some issues, but isn't as high a priority as the factories and critical failure rates. The master architect armoirehas an artwork problem andlooks identical to the 2nd style armoire, yet uses the resources equivalent to the other white cantina furniture. I'll have to check to see if this is fixed yet.
Why does the data terminal use 9 master artisan components of twotypesfrom factory crates, yet does nothing?I expected it to light up and flicker like the torchesafter requiring 6electronics gp modules (while the torch requires1)or make a noise or accept commandsnot unlike a droid dueto the3 electronics memory modules.It is an expensive, decorativedoorstop.
I don't mind that the lamps don't light, but having desk lamps that sit on the floor looks odd. Having to use the stairs to get these items to orient vertically is awkward. Clothing, armor, and backpacks that are dropped in the house orient correctly, but not the desk lamps or other small objects that one can purchase or find as drops.
Lastly, regardless how I /move or /rotate my dropped crates, or how many times I trade them with my friends, some crates simply won't open. With 30-100 structure modules or 5-10 walls, this is a significant problem. I kept 3 of them for a week or so, then finally gave up and destroyed them after receiving sympathy notes in response to my trouble tickets.
Despite these frustrations, it is a great feeling to see theguild halls as they are built and the larger installations and to think..."I made that..."
Again, thank you for considering these issues and for all your hard work! *smiles*
Lyr Starseeker
Gorath, Tatooine, Mos Entha area
3) Reclaiming Maintenance and Power - Add the options to remove maintenance and power from all buildings that require upkeep. Many players will often find themselves moving harvesters or houses to more ideal locations, harvesters especially with the dynamic resources. This can result in lost power resources and credits due to resource shifts.
This is actually pretty involved. There are issues to where the money goes when you redeed the structure that we’ll have to solve. But we do like the idea, and will look into this. J
This shouldn't be as involved as you think, you've already got mechanisms in place to handle both. For maintenance, vendors currently have the option to both add and remove credits from the maintenance pools. The system isn't quite as elegant as having a slider like is used for depositing credits in, but it's working now with vendors so it should be relatively easy to make it work for harvesters.
For power, it's been suggested that you use a mechanism like the input hopper on a factory. If necessary, you can make it so you can't access the hopper while the harverster is running. The user turns off the harvester, accesses the hopper, loads/unloads power, then restarts the harvester. It works in factories, it should be adaptable for harvesters.
And now for my personal add-on...you've mentioned redesigning the UI for a lot of different parts of the game to streamline them (the crafting interface is one I can think of right off the top of my head, the bazaar another). I'd really like to see the harvester UI done over. There are way too many clicks going on to maintain and use harvesters. Separate windows for status, maintenance, power, and operation could all be combined into one (probably even integrated into the current operate window).