Architect Archive
Thread: Week 2 Report Sent
Construction Tree - A widely debated topic and well-known concern, Architects feel that the Construction skill tree, or the apparent lack of skills, deserves attention, in the way of bringing the tree up to par with our other trees.
Perhaps if we were given some insight as to what the Developers had actually planned to do with the Construction tree and/or what role experimentation is supposed to play in with structures. With that information we would be able to re-asses the usefulness of the tree to determine whether or not it should be re-balanced.
However, despite which side of the Construction / Experimentation fence an Architect stands on, all Architects agree that our Assembly and Experimentation skill bonuses needs to be raised to be on equal terms with other crafting classes. Currently, the Experimentation and Assembly skill bonuses provided upon reaching Master status only amounts to a +55 bonus, as opposed to other crafting classes that receive a +100 bonus as a Master crafter.
Factories and Crates – An annoying occurrence that has yet to be resolved, players often have difficulty in removing items from a crate. The items become “stuck”, attempting to remove the item from the crate will show it tick down, but re-tick up. Other times it refuses to tick at all. The problem does not seem to be related to inventory space.
It has been said that crates put into the input hopper would self-extract themselves, however only a handful of Architects have been able to get the feature to function properly.
Another problem with the factory is if it uses up the maintenance pool while in the process of crafting items, instead of stopping production, the factory will continue to use up the resources but not provide a product. Effectively “eating” resources.
It is also in the opinions that the Structure Factory uses too many lots, lots that Architects feel is already a precious commodity. Many of the top level Architect schematics require the use of identical modules. Eventually a career Architect is “forced” to have a Structure Factory if they wish to proceed further up the tree.
Colorization – Perhaps the most commonly asked question that an Architect receives, currently we are unable to make any color decisions with any of our products. Color options are in great demand, especially in the case of furniture, where more often then not, the default colors are hardly desirable. Lack of color options ruins possible potential sales of furniture. Most people would agree that choice of color, in the real world and in game, is a major factor when making a decision on what to purchase. Item colorization could be implemented in our skill tree through Furniture or Construction trees, in a similar manner like that of the Tailor.
Lots – Some in the community have voiced a concern with the amount of lots allotted to us. A typical Architect would need a house (ranging from 2-6 lots), a power source (1 lot), a structure factory (2 lots), and whatever left goes to harvesters use (1-5 lots). Suggestions have been made such as increased lots for Architects, in the form of lot gains through skills. Others have suggested that the required amount of resources for buildings are simply too high and should be lowered to more reasonable amounts. Is the idea of additional lots being considered? Or will additional lots be strictly reserved for future expansions?
Mixed Bag of Furniture Fixes – A handful of small bugs that we would like to see addressed with in pre-existing furniture, seemingly simple fixes.
- Lamps from Furniture II do not provide light sources
- Inability to sit on Large Bed from Furniture III
- Inability to pick up Ballot Box Terminal from Furniture III
- Inability to target couch from Furniture III
- Master level Armoire has the same graphic as the Armoire from Furniture II
- Chests, Armoires, Toolchests and Bookcases that can be used as containers
Personal Issue – This week I would like to request additional schematics be added to the furniture line, as well as furniture that is planet specific. House decorating is something that most people find prestigious and wish to display interesting and unique pieces. The small selection of furniture we have now does not provide sufficient diversity for the amount of players that we service.
For the Architect Furniture tree, I would like to request additional plants, both global and planet specific types. The current choices we have, all three of them, are available with Novice Architect, and while somewhat colorful, they lack the “Star Wars” feel. All players would love to see more house-hold plants, perhaps adding 2-4 plant schematics per Furniture level would be sufficient for now.
It has been widely expressed that Artwork is needed, in the form of paintings, statues, models, rugs and posters. I would like to see a few generic paintings and statues added to the Furniture skill tree, as well as planet specific versions as well.
For example - a series of paintings that depicts the war between the Naboo and the Trade Federation that can only be placed on Naboo.
I would also like to request some rare and unique Artwork added to the game in the form of random drops, or acquirable through quests or high-level mobs. Recruitment posters from faction kills, perhaps a painting of Jabba you receive as a quest reward from him, antique broken droids even.
I could go on all day about furniture additions, there really is never enough time for me to talk about all the furniture stuff I’d like to see. Come to think of it, probably not even enough room for all my furniture ideas for Architect class. I guess we’ll just have to make a new Interior Designer profession, right?
For now, a dozen more plants and some more light sources would be sufficient for now I think. I hope we begin to see some cycling in of new schematics soon.
As usual this was the exact text e-mailed.
Pre-Liminary for Week 3 will be up tomorrow or sunday.
Thanks,
Mitsudo - Ahazi
Takenoko - SWGCraft.com
What happened to lamps going anywhere other than the floor? 
I would still like to know how people are putting items on the wall (hanging backpacks etc) when it is a singlestory structure
Also generic housing is a farce. It almost isnt worth it to make a large house since a medium naboo/tatooine looks so much better.
I would like a balcony on the large generic I mean come on after paying all that resources for a large you dont get a view when both the medium and large naboo get nice views, the large naboo is like a freakin mansion and should cost more resources to build than a generic large IMO
I dont make large generics anymore because noone wants them, they all are happy with the medium generics since they look just as good.
Great post.
Point for next weeks post.
Feed back on house decay - I lost a medium naboo this week, most likely because after putttng a few weeks worth of maint in it at a time i got used to not checking on it and it decayed. LOSSES - full vendor, factories, med harvesters, a 3 floors fullly furnished, 4 fully experimented crafting stations. I'm not complaining about the decay feature working, I'm glade it does. I'm upset that 200k+ of my hard earned possesions can disapear without any notice or feedback from SWG.
- No notice when maintenance ran out.
- No warning that my house was about to be reclaimed, ie your house will fall down in 24 hrs
- No notice that it did fall down, ie you have not paid your maintenance and your house has been reclaimed
Without the last one I was left in the dark for 24 hours not knowing what had happened to my house (was told in the chat room by a csr to wait for the next reboot to see if it was just a disapearing house bug), in fact I still can not say for shurewhat happened to it. I've had no response from the 3 csr tickets, no response from the bug report. No email explaining what happened. Nothing!
My vendor in the new house is bugged with all the items from the old vendor that are unretrievable.
Zarcath,
While many of your points are dead on, I believe your complaint aboutlots (and the relative number of resources that we can bring in)is unjustified. If you check the schematics for every one of the other advanced engineering professions, you will see that their schematics, even from fairly early levels, start to call for uncommon to extremely rare kinds of resources. The only place we encounter this in the architect skill tree is at the master furniture level, and it's not as if most of our customers are coming to us specifically for the furniture that we can make; it's for the houses. In short, the sheer bulk of resources - and shortage of lots if you choose to operate independently - are meant to compensate for the fact that we require almost no specific kinds of resources to fill our schematics' requirements.
In fact, I would argue that it is far too easy to make all the best kinds of buildings. While the number of master architects, master weaponsmiths, master armorsmiths, and master droid engineers increases at an incredible rate every day (I, myself, am a master architect on Tarquinas) only a month after release, the number of master weaponsmiths who can make all of the best weapons (or armorsmiths who can make all of the best armor, etc.) are significantly less than the number of architects who can spit out a PA guild hall a day. Why? Because as architects, we only have to track down a lot of one generic type of resource - low grade ore being the best example. While I was sitting comfortably on Corellia, harvesters on every type of resource that I needed, my weaponsmith friend was spending his days avoiding the worst kinds of "reds" on remote planets as he desperately sought out one of twenty or so rare resources he needed to make his advanced weaponry. Then, once he found a location, he had to make his way back to it every few days to collect the resource, usually to find that it had shifted.
Ten lots are enough.After all, you've probably never had the worst kind of aggressive mobs hunting you down just so you could gather a few thousand units of a rare resource that you probably won't see again for at least a couple of weeks. Our profession may be buggy, but in comparison to most of the other advanced engineering classes, we have it pretty easy. Though I would certainly love, like you suggested, to see more customization options in the creation of furniture and possibly even houses.
Cheers,
- Camerus,
Master Architect (Arak) on Tarquinas
Co-Founder of the Doaba Coalition
Architects get screwed because there's no difference in our products. You make it sound like the problem is a lack of furniture styles. No, the problem is that we can't manipulate the efficiencies of a harvester, or change the color of anything (not just furniture.)
If there was a difference in the way things, say harvesters, were made it would create a whole new market for us with the base values being what they are today.
"Jimbob is selling his unexperimented medium harvesters for 15k, and builds them out of bad materials. Billyjoe fully experiments his medium harvesters and uses the finest of materials, but his cost 40k. BJ's harvesters 65% faster and cost 20% less maintainance than Jimmy's."
Tha above scenario is NECCESSARY in a player driven economy and the total lack of this is what's going to destroy us.
I'd like to add this tot he list at some point. Harvestors are supposed to be able to take maintenance from the bank. Can we get a toggle switch installed that would allow us to choose bank maintenance or manual maintenance. I want a toggle because some people do not want bank maintenance for various reasons.
Now if I could paysomeone to empty all the hoppers and deposit it in my bank daily. Hmmm...
Because a Heavy could be experimented to provide absslutely collossal harvests.
I wasent sure were to put this so i hope it gets seen here. I see a problem with crafting and all the other profestions, people are getting to master way to fast, that and there are to few profestions to master... I tred going to Weapon smith, but soon found that to do so would wast time and money, and i picked it over Armor smith. and that was a mistake also. First, Armor smith gets a FULL suit of armor to make, so they get two the first of there tree faster, second.. armor smiths get to novis faster with only 16500, were as weapon smiths have to wait till 25000 i think... then the weapon smith has a sword, a grenade, and one gun to make to get XP. Well, this wasent a problem in the begenning for everyone who got to factorys first, the XP was flowing. But for the rest of use who had dreams of getting to weapon smith, or any other sith and the like, would find it VERY hard to do anything, why make a gun when everyone else is buying the other guys, why make armor when everone has moved onto better armor, why make anything, cuz some people like to, but we dont like not being abill to do anything with it.... i think we should have more to make, more uses of our skill... maybe give the fighters the abillity to target the weapon of there enemy so the weapon smith will have someone to sell to.. it seem, everyone has everything, makeing the guy who just makes weapons cant do much but start to do everything as well.... there should be more profestions. what they should be im not sure, but i know the cook cant go fare cuz no one eats... i know were still in the early days of the game, so this is the best time to put more profetions in the game. im not sure what everyones going to do now, i mean, what else can a master do, but get board and move on. I think there should be a chemist, someone who can mess around with steels and fiberplasts to make better stuff.. so the smiths can try new things, but they have to have the "skill" to use the new resours, (the new skill would be avalible in there tree). I think we should have a better veriaty of weapons to pick from, not better then the next, but diffrent then the other, and more of them. More droids with more abillity than just "pets". I think we should have more armors, like leather armor, cloth armor, and the like... armors that a PC could put there own touch into so that its diffent then the next guys. I think there should be more building s to make, but im sure that will come with the PC citys. For the chefs, or the people who want to be chefs, i think food should be eaten or you start to loss hit points, or mind points... so you give the cooks a place in the world, i know i would eat more if i had to, not just so i can shoot better. For the droid makes, maybe the abilty to program them to make things, like a factory, but slower, so the armorsmith doent have to make all the fiberplast panals himself. Maybe the devs could put in a system were an NPC would come to you, or through a mission, and order 50 CDEF rifles, or a new building, or armor for the empier. That way you get XP, $, and or faction points and find your place in the world of....... STAR WARS. Thanks for reading, i hope this is enough.
Aroneok, The CONS, Lowca.