Architect Archive
Thread: Zarcath Issue Discussion
Zarcath,
You may not have ever seen my posts, which would not be surprising as I've not made a lot of them. I've also been away for a while as the game bugs were annoying me into not playing. Now that things are more stable and I'm back in the game, I have some issues from this class I thought I'd bring up.
Resource Shifting
The IDEA behind it makes sense. How it actually works is a whole other issue. I think one of the primary focuses should be working on this aspect of the game. We HAVE to get to a point where the %number degrades over time due to mining/sampling. This thing with POOF, your resource is gone is just unaccpetable. Aside from the very unrealistic aspect of that system, it really adds complications to coming up with any sort of real consistancy with resources.
I feel a more stable resource system would better benifit the playing community.
Experimentation
Yeah, why am I doing this? The first thing we need (and I believe I read somewhere that they are working on something like this) is the ability as the crafter to see ALL the stats of an item we've created. I want to see every little thing that my crafting has caused with this item. Once it's created and experimentation is complete, you can reduce the information shown. But part of the fun of experimentation is seeing the changes your skill is making.
And that leads me right into ... What the heck is Experimentation doing for me? Nothing it looks like. As I see it, in the architect profession, there are several categories that are effected by the items we create:
1 - Maintainance
2 - Power Source Consumption (not on all items)
3 - Functionality
Experimentation should be able to effect these items though these categories. You should be able to make a higher quality item, requiring less maintainance. You should be able to make an item so efficient that it reduces the overall cost of power to the item. You should be able to increase the amount of resources an item can gather, how much it can hold, how long it would last (durability), etc.
Harvestors are a great example. You should be able to tweak a harvestor unit to be able to aquire more resources then an untweaked unit. Another possibility is to create a harvestor that can pull more resources from a limited pocket then a normal one could (i.e. it could pull from a 25% resouce pocket more resources in 1 hour then a normal, unmodified unit could.)
And for mundane items, like couches. How about experimentation leading to alternate colors? Or perhaps you can experiment to chang the design of the item so it looks different from other couches. I feel sometimes like I'm playing The Sims (tm) when I play SWG. We all have x number of couch designs, so they are everywhere.
Diversity
If I had one thing above all others I'd like changed, it's the lack of diversity. Every Master Architect is exactly the same. They can all make EXACTLY the same items. Here's an idea I had. What if you get points as you skill up that you can use to by schematics? Hear me out on this.
1 - You need to rework the experience system. Furnature is not a structure, so why do I need Structure Crafting XP to make it? Each skill spoke should have it's own XP type. Furnature XP, Structure Crafting XP (for the construction branch), Installation XP and Building XP. That way, if you practice Couches, you get better at Furnature
Yeah yeah, I know what you're thinking. You have to be kidding, do you know how much resources it takes to build a house. Yeah, I do actually. That's why the xp gain for structures should be high, while furnature items should be low.
2 - Now that you have your new xp, you need to have a new reward for going up in Skill level. Let's say that there are a total of 10 new pieces of furnature you can make at Furnature I. Let's say that's 100 points of furnature schematic points, 10 per piece. and let's say at Furnature I a player gets 60 furnature schematic points to spend. Now you'd get to pick SIX out of the TEN available pieces. That means that there's more diversity between architects. I may not be able to make Couch 2, but I can make Seat 4 and you can't, etc..
3 - This idea would work even better for homes. Why is it an architect can make every planets homes? With Home Schematic points, you have to choose what schematics you get. Which means you may be able to make a Corellian home, but not the Naboo brand.
4 - It would also be nice if you could specialize in a particular type of home, for instance Corellian homes. And be able to make better homes then someone who makes general homes. Even better, general homes everyone can make, that work on every planet. And then specific planet homes should be harder to design. But I digress ...
It all comes down to diversity. It's bad enough that Master Artisan is so whacked. It would be nice if we could design a more diverse Architect. If we all became Master Architects, if all Architects were suddenly made master, what benifit do you have of buying from me, vs that one over there, or that one over there? There wouldn't be one. We need to have more impact on the items we can create to make them more interesting. And with Experimentation appearing to do nothing for us, nothing REALLY benificial, we're all going to end up clones in the end.
Rewards
Lastly, I just wanted to mention rewards for a moment. Every Skill in our tree to master should have a schematic in it. EVERY one of them. Schematics are the reward that we live for. We long for that next cool design that we can make. That gives me two thoughts:
1 - Construction Tree should have something to make out of it, a benifit that makes it worth it to climb that tree. It would be nice if homes came with optional slots. And those optional items can be made from Construction. So that you can make better houses with construction.
2 - What about having several types of an item that houses need be available. For instance, you need a structure storage module. What if there were serveral types of them to choose from. And which one you use changes how you can experiment on the item. Something like that.
3 - Okay, i actually have another thought, but I'm at work and was distracted so I forgot it. Poop.
Anyway, these are all my thoughts at the moment for Architect. Please feel free to discuss them as you will, or ask questions about my ideas that you think are unclear. I'll be happy to share my further thoughts.
Sincerely,
Reeco Suav'eh.
P.S. Don't kill the economy of your server by making free items for people. Come up with a price schedule for every item you make. It's okay to discount for a friend or PA member, but you should still charge SOMETHING. Undercutting seems to benifit you now, but usually you get undercut by 5 people for every 1 you do.
Valryn,
I didn't mean to sound like I didn't want resource shifts. I certainly do. I simply want the shifts to be trackable, as opposed to some random event. Suddenly poof, no more resource. I agree that it means people have to move their equipment and it's harder to have a monopoly. That's a good thing.
I'm mostly looking for a shift in the resource % during surveying/harvesting that tells us we are depleting a resource. This is going to take some coding on the part of SOE to get right, but I think it's worth it.
Then the question comes up, how should new resources appear. An equilly good question, and one I don't have an answer for at the moment.
Reeco
Well a good idea is probably a slowly decaying % over time and it would go faster or slower depending on the number of extractors maybe. So a spot that might have a set number of resources that can be extracted from that spot and as the number gets lower so does the % chance of actually getting anything til it finally goes poof.
And btw, you wanna talk about waits for resources? Took almost a week, 5 or 6 days I think, for copper to come back. Longest wait I've ever seen.
I think that the resource shifts would be fine with one small change. I would like for the survey tool to tell us how long a resource has existed. If they just told us the number of days that a resource had already been there we would know how much risk there was in placing a harvester, or keeping a harvester on that spot. If we came across a resource on its first day, we can be reasonably sure that we will get at least 5 days use out of that spot. If we come across a great deposit on a resource that has already been there for 6 days, we really couldn't complain much if the resource dissapeared the next day. The problem is now that resource shifts are like playing the lottery. If we knew how long the resources had already been there, we could weigh the costs and benefits much easier.
Right now its possible to keep track of when the resources on your planet spawned if you keep logs by hand. I just don't think that keeping pages and pages out logs should be necessary for the resource system to work right. I don't need to know exactly when a resource is going to go away, just how much risk I am in by keepingmy harvestersthere.
I agree with this 100%, there's not enough diversity in the arch profession. What's scary about this is the fact that the way this game is setup, everyone from your power-gamer to your 2 hour a nite every third Wednesday player will eventually reach the same point, at that point (maybe sooner) the market is going to fall apart again because everyone of us will be crafting our very best products, the market will become flooded with them again, and the prices will drop back down to nothing, and we'll all be stuck with a very boring class usefull only when your good buddy wants an item but doesn't want to go to the trouble of finding it on a vendor somewhere or screws up and forgets to pay his maintenance. Armor and weapons crafters have a little bit of an advantage when it comes to this because their items degrade naturally through usage and repairs have a chance of reducing the items overall integrity or destroying it completely. With the structures, as long as you pay the maintenance the structure stands solid at it's 100% integrity, so once we build everyone a house or whatever it is they want we're pretty much done with our part of the game, time to start over again. The idea about the furniture colors is very cool. Architects can create buildings with sliding doors, overhead lighting, complete with it a personal computer to lock the doors while you're away BUT we can only make you a 1970's orange couch. The "modern"couch is as fantastic purple color which is assured to match absolutly nothingin your house, unless you just enjoy hanging "Looted Clothing" all over your pad. And what exactly does experminting with furniture do anyway? More stain-resistant? More flame-retardent than the previous model so when you knock over a Tiki Torch in those monster parties at your house, it isn't quite as likely to go up in flames what? What does it do? I'm pretty sure that a 0% chair sits just as good as a 100% chair, never had a leg fall off on my table and even if I do create a masterpeice nobody will ever know it but me and ifI put 2 of the same chair in my inventory and camp it's anybody's guess as to which one's "the good chair". Experminting may actually do something for weapons and armor but I don't see where it's actually worth our time as architects, unless you just like adding 5 more clicks to your already gimped wrist from the crafting required to get to this point. (Bring on the pain we can handle it.)
Resource shifting...
Who's bright idea was this? I understand that resources deplete, but they do it over time and they do it gradually with a factor as to how heavily they are extracted. Imagine you're on an oil rig pumping barrell after barrel of wonderfull crude oil, ya take a nap and when you wake up the rig has shut itself down because oil is no longer at this location but there's now a wonderfull chocolate milk deposit here, so lets pull some of that up? And the term "resource shifting" what brainiac came up with this idea to begin with? Resources don't "shift" well not fast enough that we'd notice it in our lifetime. Don't beleive me? Take a 5 lb rock and set it by your door, have your great great grandkids letour'sknow when it naturally "shifts" itself to the street. I will agree that the resources do need to be managed to prevent the development of "Farm Spots". Instead of the craziness that's going on now, why not simply make deposits deplete as they are collected and be equally be replaced by a completely different resource, for example, as that 90% mineral deposit is depleted it's replaced by a chemical deposit, or a flora deposit. This still isn't very realistic but it's a whole lot easier to deal with than the "Here it is, Now it's gone." shifting thats taking place currently.
Ok, I'm done I think...I feel better.
Zarcath,
The whole point of bumping it in the first place is that I was waiting for your response. Now that I got one, I'm a bit disappointed. Mostly in the fact that I took the time to write up my ideas for you, and you took about two seconds to write that.
As the Architect Correspondent, it would be nice of you to provide your feedback when it's specifically requested, or at the very least you could let me know that you can't respond or I don't know anything polite like that.
You asked in other threads for our imput, so I've given you mine. If you don like it or think it's crap just say so, and I'll move on.
Thanks though to the other people who are posting their ideas, questions, comments.
Reeco
One problem I have with resources degrading is ore deposits. It is hard enough to find a spot at 60% and all of you know that if a spot is found there are 100+ medium harvestors on in within a day. No system would really be fair to these deposits. Yes a 90% spot should decay and very rapidly if 200k resources are being pulled from it each day. But an ore deposit that drops 10-15% in one day because all that is being taken out is horrible. I and other architects have a hard enough time trying to find decent deposits that only stay for a week.
Most of the heavy harvestors take 12-14k of the same ore. Maybe your suggesting something else like instead of going away instantly they would start to degrade over time after that point. I get very little ore right now on a 50-60% spot. If the average spot was 40% or less things would be that much worse.
I agree with the idea as a whole and as resources should really work logically, but the biggest user or resources(architects) would be seriously hurt buy this. Ore is probably mined 3-4 times as much as any other material and would degrade that much faster than others.