Armorsmith Archive

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CaileSathinor wrote:

I gave the Devs a list of the top 10 issues I feel we found were most relevant (I apologize if I missed something). Here's what Blixtev had to say:


We need, overall, some serious lovin'. I've actually started an AS specific bug thread here. The same bugs seem to be cropping up a lot, if you could take a look for us.

Looked at some of them most are to deal with enhancements and the imperial PSG no long able to mass produce it. That is intentional, 5 limited use schematics should yield 5 and not several hundreds used in a factory.

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OMG!! I hope that's a freakin joke. 5 PSG's... not able to do factory runs? With the rate they get used up, it is completely impractical toEVEN BOTHER getting the schematic.

I tried to be positive, to keep my fingers crossed and my hopes up. There were alot of changes I thought I could live with.. but the lack of thought on those responses and the change to resource gate/weighting and the fact that armor does nothing against the higher level NPC's (getting 1-shotted) does nothing to restore my faith.

Good job at getting some kind of response Caile. I've just cancelled my alt (master musician, master merchant, master artisan, CL1) and my main is paid up until June 4th. That's just over a month for SOE to convince me they still value me as a customer.

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kesstral wrote:

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CaileSathinor wrote:

I gave the Devs a list of the top 10 issues I feel we found were most relevant (I apologize if I missed something). Here's what Blixtev had to say:


We need, overall, some serious lovin'. I've actually started an AS specific bug thread here. The same bugs seem to be cropping up a lot, if you could take a look for us.

Looked at some of them most are to deal with enhancements and the imperial PSG no long able to mass produce it. That is intentional, 5 limited use schematics should yield 5 and not several hundreds used in a factory.

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OMG!! I hope that's a freakin joke. 5 PSG's... not able to do factory runs? With the rate they get used up, it is completely impractical toEVEN BOTHER getting the schematic.

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CaileSathinor wrote:
Hey, it's a start, in my opinion. Better than silence.

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Yes, I agree, personaly I'm more amused at the fact that sence your became core we've seen more of Blixtev then normal.

Cohenceadence, ~_-

Technicaly speaking Caile, and thanks for the effort, But we still got proverbal stone wall.

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McElroy: " it's not the size of the Smuggler in the fight. It's the size of the fight in the Smuggler. Let's do this now "

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Wallid Salmomn, Master "Field Protections" Elder Armorsmith of Xcalibur For all your Field Protections needs (as well as Reb Master Munitions Crafter ). "Bult Tough, Bult MonCal Tough "

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Kesslan wrote:

Just a little note for you complaining about how quickly PSGs die? post CU they last for bloody ever. I've been using mine in heavy combat with my alt toon and I've yet to burn it out. Mostly casue now the only thing that affects is are ranged energy attacks. But even when I'm taking alot of blaster fire (like the corvettes) it helps a little. and I could be up there all day long before it woudl burn out. Also imp PSGs now give skill mods. So I can see why they made it so that it's only a 5 use scehmatic. That all said....

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Message Edited by JeCy on 05-01-2005 04:23 AM

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CaileSathinor wrote:

I gave the Devs a list of the top 10 issues I feel we found were most relevant (I apologize if I missed something). Here's what Blixtev had to say:

1) Every pre-CU enhancer we had now shows as +0 health benefit. EVERYTHING. This I hope, can be rectified, as many of us have large stores of these we'd been saving. Also, when pulling stuff from crates, it seems either a) the stats shown on the crate are halved, or b) have no stats or certs at all.

Avi looked at all the enhancers and says the stats are there just the examine script isnt reading them, correctly. This should be fixed soon. He also fixed the PSGs coming out of crates as well just needs to run the fix.

What about admitting this on the login page? The clock starts ticking on "double experience" and "skillsRespec" tonight. Do you expect all the Armorsmiths to wait to see if their enhancers magically gain stats again? Or are you going to extend the Xp bonus and respec timeline?

2) Named resource requirements are just hella high still. Especially for stuff NO ONE wants to harvest, like Naboo Bristley. I worked the following solution out with the community:

-Reduce all Named organics (i.e. Naboo bristley, lokian leathery) to just generic bristley or leathery. Then move the organics from the cores into the skin at a 1:1 ratio. You thus preserve the amount of resources we need, but still make it possible for us to craft decent armors.
This means the one point that experimentation is the most important (protection and condition) would be mainly controlled by resources that come out of the grounds in millions. Using organics allows us to reinforce some interdependencies and not allow people to sit on massive multi million stockpiles of metals/ores.

So how does this not allow people to "sit on massive multi million stockpiles of metals/ores"? and even hides? Those who pay the most get the most. The little guy will get squeezed out of competition when the good stuff spawns.

As far as named organics in the minerals department, there's about 10 or so of these. Can you possibly cut these back to 5 named minerals that are new and make the rest just generic versions or some other resource we needed before? Big issues are Perovskitic Aluminum and Gravitonic Fiberplast, which shipwrights will be competing for in mass quantities (which is bad, from our perspective).

3) Lack of information on the following items/armors, and how to get them:

-Biological-Mechanical Cartridge
-Appearance enhancer
-Armor core enhancer
-Bounty Hunter Armor Schematic
-Marauder Armor Schematic

Most of the systematic crafting hooks were put in just may or may not have been implemented contentwise. Things like BH schematics are not in the game yet but are on standby as content needs quest/loot rewards.

Feathered appearance? What's a feathered appearance? Did I put that in there?

4) Bounty Hunter Armor Conversion: Many people are reporting their looted BH suits converted to craftable BH armor with crappy stats. Some people only had collected this for use in Mandalorian (like myself). Is there a chance for an option to take a piece of BH armor that was converted and have it either be 1) broken into its components like Mando/RIS or 2) be converted into the loot parts needed for Mando? This has a lot of people upset.
Will look at a script to break them down into mando crafting components.

Oops, forgot about that. Don't hold your breath.

5) ADKs apparently no longer work on Armor. Is this a bug or intended?

Hearing mixed reports on this one, will have to get a repro case setup.

Intended... hmm... better get back to you on this one...

6) Layer effectiveness isn't worth the factory time. Can we do something close to the following to make layers more worthwhile?

Hinderance is undesirable as an experimented stat. Very well, I'll accept this. Looking at how complexity works as you experiment on a schematic, each time you push the "Run experiment" button, the complexity of the schematic increases by X amount. Apply this same theory to all layers, depending on their relative power. As layer "power" increases, with Primus being the relative "top," the amount you increase protection by will add a fixed, unexperimentable (obviously) hinderance value to the layer, not to exceed (say 5% to each hinderance in the case of Primus layers). Layer hinderances WILL stack with each other, so quadruple layered primus could have as high as an added +20% to each hinderance.

We will look at making protection vs elemental more desirable so it is worth the time.

We didn't test this nor did we even think to quantify the affects of our changes.

7) Feathered appearance enhancement doesn't do anything.

Pre CU feathers? Post CU feathers? Has it been put into a final combine? Need more info on this one

Feathered appearance? What's a feathered appearance? Did I put that in there?

8) Many Armorsmiths have become disillusioned with the changes to our profession and would like to be allowed the ability to respec AS skills.

No idea on crafter respec.

You are getting your chance right now with Double experience and the Combat Respec. Don't miss it!

9) Experimentation, to be blunt, sucks. You can easily max 1 line with 7-8 points. Is there any way we can do something like get a line for each resistance, where applicable, which would give us I believe 6 lines to experiment on (kin/energy, plus 4 elemental). Experimenting on one line has a double effect of increasing hinderance and reducing the effect of other lines. This will get rid of master professions negating all hinderance penalties, and making AS more of an art form and not just filling 1 line.

Not anytime real soon.

This was intended. All part of my plan.

10) Combat level damage modifiers. These pretty much negate the need for armor, in my opinion. CL is our armor, not actual armor resistances. Honestly, CL is a major issue for us all, since most serious crafters have no combat which means they're getting 1 shotted. And with things like level 134 Melliache, Level 300 Axkva Min, Level 200 something NS Elders, armor is unneccessary when you're getting 1 shotted by these things. A Nightsister Elder did 30k damage to me in one hit. This is...well, there's no point to bothering to kill them now, is there?

Fighting white cons or high blues you should need some form of protection after the teens

I wish those triple digit level mobs were white cons or high blues. LOL

We need, overall, some serious lovin'. I've actually started an AS specific bug thread here. The same bugs seem to be cropping up a lot, if you could take a look for us.

Looked at some of them most are to deal with enhancements and the imperial PSG no long able to mass produce it. That is intentional, 5 limited use schematics should yield 5 and not several hundreds used in a factory.

I'm too busy to work on this right now. I have more important things to do right now... like covering my a..

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SleepyRebel wrote:

My biggest problem is ALL of the new resources!!! What is the whole point in changing how comp/ubese/padded/wookie armor is made. The big complaint before was that the armor we made was too powerful. There are some who say now that we can make better armor than the stuff we made PCU after it is converted. How does that happen? If they wanted to change the effectiveness of the armor, all they had to do was change the mathematical results on them, not change ALL of the required resources. I can't even make a single layer now and I have been saving resources for almost 2 years!!!!! And since layers are needed in segments (which I can make), and segments are needed in cores (which I can make), and cores are needed in pieces (which will require some work for the new organic resources), I CAN'T MAKE ANYTHING!!!!

If someone can answer how these drastic changes in resources will make armor less effective by themselves, please tell me. It seems that instead of hosing the whole AS community over with having to go stock up a whole new set of resources, it would have been easier to change the math behind the armor.Then testing how to make armor and its effectiveness would have been a piece of cake. Armor too godlike=change the math behind it. Armor too weak=change the math behind it. Simple answers for simple people. As lots of famous leaders throughout history have said, KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid).

Take that Blixtev!!

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I am in the same position. I made awesome pre-CU armor; now I can't make anything. I'm mad too. I don't expect anything to change.

Renea,

Well thanks for trying ...but it seems like you posed the question "umm do you realize just how hard you phooked the veteran Armorsmith in the lower cheeks" ....the reply "yup it was intentional".

Well that was the final straw. /cancel my AS

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Kesslan wrote:

Just a little note for you complaining about how quickly PSGs die? post CU they last for bloody ever. I've been using mine in heavy combat with my alt toon and I've yet to burn it out. Mostly casue now the only thing that affects is are ranged energy attacks. But even when I'm taking alot of blaster fire (like the corvettes) it helps a little. and I could be up there all day long before it woudl burn out. Also imp PSGs now give skill mods. So I can see why they made it so that it's only a 5 use scehmatic. That all said....

Problem here is that Imp PSGs while a 'loot' are actually from a quest. Said quest you can only do twice. And you have to be imperial. If it was a loot schematic that actually dropped. That'd be a whole other ball game.

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-Reduce all Named organics (i.e. Naboo bristley, lokian leathery) to just generic bristley or leathery. Then move the organics from the cores into the skin at a 1:1 ratio. You thus preserve the amount of resources we need, but still make it possible for us to craft decent armors.
This means the one point that experimentation is the most important (protection and condition) would be mainly controlled by resources that come out of the grounds in millions. Using organics allows us to reinforce some interdependencies and not allow people to sit on massive multi million stockpiles of metals/ores.

As far as named organics in the minerals department, there's about 10 or so of these. Can you possibly cut these back to 5 named minerals that are new and make the rest just generic versions or some other resource we needed before? Big issues are Perovskitic Aluminum and Gravitonic Fiberplast, which shipwrights will be competing for in mass quantities (which is bad, from our perspective).

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Well... as master ranger and master armorsmith, I would say it would be a great help if there were no planet-specificresources needed (not only for AS). Just bristley hide, not naboo bristley etc. We would still need scouts/rangers - but we could get those hides/bones that have the best stats the moment we need them. That would be a great improvement.

Named resources - the fewer, the better. It's so frustrating to look at your stock and see some superb stacks ofa resource- but the wrong name...

The shipwright-crossing resc should be changed. Getting all/enough of it as a shipwright is hard enough, they don't need AS to stand in their way.

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CaileSathinor wrote:

I gave the Devs a list of the top 10 issues I feel we found were most relevant (I apologize if I missed something). Here's what Blixtev had to say:

10) Combat level damage modifiers. These pretty much negate the need for armor, in my opinion. CL is our armor, not actual armor resistances. Honestly, CL is a major issue for us all, since most serious crafters have no combat which means they're getting 1 shotted. And with things like level 134 Melliache, Level 300 Axkva Min, Level 200 something NS Elders, armor is unneccessary when you're getting 1 shotted by these things. A Nightsister Elder did 30k damage to me in one hit. This is...well, there's no point to bothering to kill them now, is there?

Fighting white cons or high blues you should need some form of protection after the teens

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Caile, I'm not an AS, but I know a good one on Ahazi, and know how distressed he is with the massive changes to AS that the CU has imposed. Still, I dont know enough about the prof to comment intelligently on the more AS specific Q and As here.

But on this one, I'm going to make a comment.

This is flat out wrong.

I took on YELLOW cons (level 73, with a level 71 group) on Dantooine without armor, using pets to augment damage, and didn't need some form of protection. I'm level 60 one elite mastery and some dabbling. As a MCH, I'm certed for battlearmor with full mitigation, as a novice BH I'm certed for assault armor with significant hindrance and penalties to movement, which is how I believe it should be. But I wasn't wearing any armor. My level was my armor, exactly as you stated, due to the way the damage multilpliers work. Around your level, the damage is tolerable and can be dealt with through regen, stims, and buff foods. Something above your level, however, will kill you no matter what precautions you have taken. It's your punishment for daring to try to buck the level system.

Ironically, I know for a fact that PLAYERS are hit harder by the level multipliers than NPC pets are. A level 23 or so Reb NPC Spec Force Heavy Weaponstook 700 points of damage from a level 161 novatrooper, while a nearby player who was level 80, as part of a level 80 group, took over 5000 points of damage. One hit insta death, and he was wearing battle armor at the time (a master doc/master CM). Riflemen in recon nearby suffered pretty much the same fate.

But in your question you specifically addressed the issue of the level 1 pure crafter who cannot venture outside of a city and be safe, because level 10 aggro will kill them instantly.

And Blix ignored that aspect of your question.

It has been stated by devs in the past that they recognized that being one-shot is not fun.

A lot of players, even level 80s, are being one shot now.

For pure artisans, who once could avoid aggro if they were careful, and run away if they were detected and still live, it has to be very frustating indeed. Because one hit kills are the way this game works now.