Architect Archive
Thread: So you wanna be an Architect?
Ok I have read all the posts regarding architect on this site. I'm about to finish engineer 4 and need help as to what professionI should pursue. I am not a hardcore gamer not by choice but by time. Only play between 2-3 hours a day and more on weekends. I'm not worried about making tons of money but rather just having fun in the game. So I'm asking all you architects if this is cool profession to work toward.
I agree with all of your posts on the pricing thing. And yes people sell houses way to cheap. It's pretty ridiculous that for 10k you can buy a house or 1 piece of clothing for a dancer (the one like oola wears in ROTJ). So I would charge accordingly for a house if that is the path I follow. But architect sounds very complicated and time consuming. I don't have a PA to fund me just a couple of friends. So I'm asking you to make a convincing argument as to why an individual, ...err me!, should or should not become an architect.
Your friendly neighborhood Mon Calamari.
XwingRogue3 wrote:Ok I am not a hardcore gamer not by choice but by time. Only play between 2-3 hours a day and more on weekends. I'm not worried about making tons of money but rather just having fun in the game.
Then my friend, I hate to say it, but you may not have fun with Architect. It's not very casual gamer friendly at this time. I am above "casual player" time frame, but I am solo, and the house economy (Plus some harvester bugs) drove me out of that line of the business. I am now exclusively a "furnituresmith".
I'd actually suggest Tailor, Weaponsmith or Armorsmith. THe economy is good on those, demand is high, those players are getting very rich, and the amount of resources needed is far less. Much more casual friendly.
Personally if you only have 2-3 hrs aday and want your gameplay to be fun , dont go down the house construction path.
You will find yourself spending this time running to each harvy , scouting for new resource sources trying to make enough cash to maintain your harvys and managing power.
However, going up the Furniture line or the Installations line will prove profitable, you will make many many different items with lots of demand and speak to many new customers/people.
If dont mind spending all your time with resource managment (from what you said above with playing time) and making a sale a day (house wise) then go for it, it does have its rewards but its also very time consuming.
Other archys may have had a different experience but thats been mine so far.
On an additional note, once i hit med/lrg houses , ive got back orders running into next week so there is still alot of demand. plus the cash is much easier going and resource managment has eased a little now i can maintain harvys for 2 days stints rather than daily. If your good at maths and such and can organise easily you might find it much easier.
Just to give you an idea of my resource hell.
I spend almost 2hrs a nite hopper running for resources to fill that nites orders then another 2 hrs crafting if i have enuff resources to do it.
Some just turn the harvesters on for days (lots of upkeep cost) and come back days later and craft.
i have to many orders to fill to do that but its an oppion expensive but there.
i know armor smith needs tailors to make their items Weapon smiths are good choices i hear.
Dont get me wrong i like what i do but its very time consuming.
Just another point ive noticed, im sure Gib will support me with this statement.
Players are only willing to pay 40-50k for a med house (example) but they are more than willing to spend 60-70k 'decking it out' with Furny. The resource difference is phenominal.
I would recommend you partnering up with a master in what ever profession you like. For example if you want to be an architect contact a master architect and let him know that you would be willing to make some furniture or walls for him. He could then put the items on his vendor and you would have demand for your product. Profit may not be as high but the hassle would be real low.
When I first started, I did a lot of boring sampling, which I admit would be a worse experience now because of the longer delays between samples. I didn't actually "play" much during this time, I just did other things (like laundry) in between /sit, /sample, etc. Of course, you can also craft some while you sample, to save a little time.
Once I was able to build personal harvesters, I put some up in the best places I could find. It took a little trial and error, but once I figured out that I could make reinforced combat staff's at 80xp each, and even be able to sell some on the bazaar if I used resources with good stats, I put up a flora harvester to get hard wood (best for making staffs because of the shock resistance) and crafted a bunch. Most I threw away, some I was able to sell. Remember that with the 5% bonus to Xp if you "practice," you can level a little faster crafting now, and without having to delete 20 staffs that are filling up your inventory.
Of course, I couldn't maintain the harvesters I did have only by selling my crappy wares on the bazaar, so I did have to run some delivery missions to fund them. In fact, not too long after I set up harvesters, I went on vacation for 5 days, and managed to fully find and power them before I left for that entire time. It took a couple of hours of deliveries, but I managed (and had a ton of resources for crefting when I got back).
I eventually quit running missions and funded myself by selling some of my resources on the bazaar for 4-5c each. That has been a great source of income for me since then, and is one of the main reasons I even have money now.
To get the 33k of XP for novice architect I made a bunch of bone armor chest plates. Every night I would get needed resources, power/maintain harvesters, make ten or twenty chest plates, put some resources on the bazaar, and call it a day. The next day I would take my 10k or 15k credits in sales overnight to buy more resources (especially hide and bone), power/maintian harvesters, make some chest plates, etc.
Some nights I log on and just run around and fill up harvesters with credits and power. It really isn't too bad.
Sometimes it sucks when you put several days of credits and power into a harvester and the resource dries up, but don't sit and dwell on your loss, find the next place to put your harvester. Does it suck to lose 2k or 5k or 10k or more in credits or power? Sure, but I'm not going to lose more time and sanity being upset about the loss, I just reclaim the deed and move on. Resources dry up, that is the game.
I hope my experience helps you decide. Right now my credits seem to stay between 60-90k, but I haven't put much on the bazaar lately. I only have 3 medium harvesters, the rest personal. I just built my first home on Naboo. I have about 3 small house deeds, and 1 factory deed (for my use), and you know what? I have not sold 1 single item I have made as an Architect. Not one house, factory, piece of furniture, etc. Haven't even tried really. And you know what? I'm doing just fine without a PA, or two weeks of orders I need resources for, or constant tells for me to make people stuff. And I am not too poor to be worried.
So, my advice is go for it! If you don't like it, change professions (remember, SWG is designed so that you aren't pidgeonholed into one class or profession for your entire character's existence).
First off, thanks to you all for responding. Hmmm Furniture dude sounds pretty cool. I could do that. After all who wants a house with nothing in it. Cool, thanks for the ideas.
Your friendly neighborhood Mon Calamari.
X-EQholic wrote:
I would recommend you partnering up with a master in what ever profession you like. For example if you want to be an architect contact a master architect and let him know that you would be willing to make some furniture or walls for him. He could then put the items on his vendor and you would have demand for your product. Profit may not be as high but the hassle would be real low.
I tell you what.. if there are any novice architects on Tarquinas around the Rori area (or willing to travel there) that want to sit at my crafting station and grind blocks for me, I would be happy to let you do that.. I will provide the resources, and when you are done, hand the finished blocks to me.. you get the xp (500 per block) and I can spend that time running hravesters and working in the factory. Now that xp is almost nothing in factories, that route is gone for aspiring architects, so grinding blocks for an hour or more per night is an easy alternative. I had to make 170 blocks last night alone. I ran 110 through the factory and did the rest by hand. I made a PA hall last night, and a few factories and medium harvesters the day before, and it netted me around 190k xp, which I cannot do anything with. In that time I think I made close to 25 walls, so 250 blocks.. thats 125k of the xp.. that covers a tier 4 level.. I did half that in the factory, but just to save time, as the quality of the block does nothing anyway..
Anyway, I will not have blocks to make every night, but for the next 3 nights I do, so if you are on Tarq, and want to make some free xp, msg me. I dont want to let others do the more resource intensive assemblies because my whopping master level 55 structure assembly skill is a little better for putting walls and factories together, and nobody can afford a crit fail in this profession.
Since you can't commit more than 2-3 hours a night, don't commit yourself to this profession or possibly crafting in general. It will cause you to hate the game if you go into a crafitng profession that requires a large amount of time,such asarchitecture.
I recommend you go to swgcraft.com and look at the resource requirements you are up against. It doesn't really take more work to get up the Architect tree (compared with Artisan) but it takes considerably more resources - tons. It isn't more work because each item uses more resources and thus gives more exp.
Your problem playing a couple of hours a day is going to be getting the resources you need - if you could get over the hump though you might be ok. By the hump I mean to the point where money isn't a big problem on your harvesters - in the beginnging (like I am) you have to sell every item you can or do missions just to pay for the harvesters and even at that I'm working it to keep up playing 5 hours a night. If I can get up one of the lines a couple of levels I can make enough in a few larger transactions to keep me going for several days and get ahead of the curve but that is a ways off and right now it is very tough.
Avogadro