Armorsmith Archive
Thread: Getting to know you and your profession.
Keuller
Fri Sep 10, 2004 2:22 pm
#40
1) Storage. I need more storage if resource stacks remain capped at 100k.
2) Creature resources. People do not enjoy hunting guallamas 10 hours a day, it's not fun for them, the prices needed to get people to hunt them aren't fun for me. There needs to be some way of harvesting from creatures other than sitting there and killing them. Do fishermen now go out with a rod and reel or a 3sq mile dragnet? A dragnet, because they're trying to supply an extremely large population with creature resources. Well, the same applies here, we need a better way of getting hides.
3) HAM's are quite experimentable, most people are simply unwilling to adjust their focus to accomodate the game's crafting system. Do not change HAM experimentation, it works just fine
4) FS crafting XP, it's kind of tough on us crafters. I understand you don't want people grinding to jedi, but consider this, most people who want to be a jedi aren't going to want to pick up FS crafting lines, they're really not that helpful when grinding out saber XP...Lighten up on the crafters, please.
Not specific to armorsmith bonus answer: Please, I beg you, have your programmers play the game sometimes, do they know what a pain it is to get lokian wooly hide? The dev team didn't seem to realize that horn no longer dropped from anything when designing the wookiee armor, and that is very worrisome. A little understanding through experience would go a long ways towards avoiding obvious and easily averted pitfalls.
2) Creature resources. People do not enjoy hunting guallamas 10 hours a day, it's not fun for them, the prices needed to get people to hunt them aren't fun for me. There needs to be some way of harvesting from creatures other than sitting there and killing them. Do fishermen now go out with a rod and reel or a 3sq mile dragnet? A dragnet, because they're trying to supply an extremely large population with creature resources. Well, the same applies here, we need a better way of getting hides.
3) HAM's are quite experimentable, most people are simply unwilling to adjust their focus to accomodate the game's crafting system. Do not change HAM experimentation, it works just fine
4) FS crafting XP, it's kind of tough on us crafters. I understand you don't want people grinding to jedi, but consider this, most people who want to be a jedi aren't going to want to pick up FS crafting lines, they're really not that helpful when grinding out saber XP...Lighten up on the crafters, please.
Not specific to armorsmith bonus answer: Please, I beg you, have your programmers play the game sometimes, do they know what a pain it is to get lokian wooly hide? The dev team didn't seem to realize that horn no longer dropped from anything when designing the wookiee armor, and that is very worrisome. A little understanding through experience would go a long ways towards avoiding obvious and easily averted pitfalls.
jhfries
Fri Sep 10, 2004 2:23 pm
#41
I have to ditto the above the posts,many of them reflect my personal feelings.
So, what's important to me and my profession...
1. Creatable Faction Armor. Not so much "faction" armor per say, but armoreasily recognizable fromStar Warslore.
2. Armor Certifications. For example, you have to be Imperial to wear Storm Trooper Armor, or say a professionxwith y-y-y-y skillsin order to wear armor typez)
3. The third relates the first two. Different types of armor need to have different advantages and disadvantages. Most everyone wears composite because it is the "best". What if Ubese was the only high end Kinetic protection available? We'd see more use of different armor types and an easier path for new smiths to get into the market.
Thanks for listening!
shylady
Fri Sep 10, 2004 2:36 pm
#43
my gripe about my pertetion is there isnt much we can make that sells. armor and weopen repair kits sell, but they sell cheap, and who needs vehicles if every one has one. the noobs with no money and the guy who blew his up at night sisters. rockets sell, but there cheap, power ups are cheap too. oh yeah, and componints that other perfetions need that will only buy if its in a create. so the pour artisan needs a factory. with my 6 artisan minaral harvesters i can only make 6 x34 a day. im buying 2 heavy minaral harvisters soon so i can grind them fs boxes so i can make the star fighters better soon. the fs boxes dont help if im master does it? point is, non masters need to be aible to sell things good too. like vehicle parts.
CommanderKendall
Fri Sep 10, 2004 2:36 pm
#44
Hi Tiggs, thanks for doing this profession survey.
As to what I feel is most important is that surveying has no elite profession. Each other branch of artisan leads to one or more elite professions, but for those of us who enjoy surveying, for tracking down and finding resources and/or harvesting resources there is very little advancement which can be done and very little diversity between what one can do at Novice Artisan and Surveying IV. Even at Surveying IV one can only survey a small area (although increased from the survey range at novice Artisan). After one has reached this point there is no further possible progression with resource finding skills and even Master Artisan provides no additional ability increase.
The possible exception may be the new FS skills for surveying, which potentially allow for a small increase in the surveying bonus, and I have not heard of whether that provides any commensurate increase in survey range or sampling skill. I think a welcome addition would be a new Resource Hunter/Miner/Surveyor type profession allowing for possibly new resource harvester types, resource smelting and alloys, long distance surveying/planetary or regional resource detection, resource analyzing (to get statistics of a resource without having to sample it).
Message Edited by CommanderKendall on 09-10-2004 05:39 PM
shylady
Fri Sep 10, 2004 2:57 pm
#45
some body say all speeders are the same fast? come on, x34 landspeeder is the slowest and the s´woop is the fastest. i tested the av21. its as fast as a swoop. havent tested it up hill yet. there people who want a larger range with survay. the devs said its as large as it gets. there is no more info past, what is it? 350m? though at survay 4 we get 2 ranges. maybe they should move one to the master box.
Snikrop
Fri Sep 10, 2004 2:57 pm
#46
Some sort of mini-game for crafting would be more interesting that the waiting for stats after half a dozen clicks. Could we make crafting for hours be as fun as killing for hours? This is tied to making lower level artisan goods more important to the world of SWG on the whole. Tone down the need to grind to master artisan and the whole profession feels more rewarding, as all goods from a novice crafters should have a small chance of coming out near master, even if it's a .01% chance. Making more methods for artisans to sell products with exisiting merchants, rather than having them work with the gimpy global vendors or spamming to drive traffic to one of their own vendors, would help too. Perhaps it's time that a contract system where players make a general request to a central database for a good. Crafters can view the requests and take them as missions. Having to wait for profession x to get online, only drives people to profession x in the early days of a character, it makes them want to quit when the adv. crafters are missing from the game because there's no route to finding what they need without changing their skill sets. Publishes that will repair issues with crafting are a year away at best so things could be in sorry state by the time this stuff sees dev attention.
Message Edited by Snikrop on 09-10-2004 05:15 PM
Mkappus
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:06 pm
#47
Shylady,
Different types of speeders have different speeds. But every single Swoop is identical in performance to every other Swoop. The only thing we can affect are its hit points. We are asking to have different experimental attributes on the existing vehicels.
Enix_Dayspring
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:14 pm
#48
I personally would like to see more value in the variety of armors we can make.
Why does Composite have to be the end all and be all of armors?
I would like to see all armors have higher defenses against kinetic, but also have special resistences to other damage types to make them more versitile and desirable for adventurers to buy.
Honestly I wouldnt mind if there was very little difference in armor types and the model of armor were just a skin. Give the armorsmith more flexibility in setting armors strengths and weeknesses and you will see more variety in what adventurer players wear, not just composite but all armor types.
Oh and as many others have mentioned, let us craft HIGH END stormtrooper or rebel armor to add to the star wars feel.
darthbock
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:23 pm
#49
I'll try to write in two sections - one for additions and another for fixes.
Fixes:
Tantel Armor. The suit is incomplete, there areno advanced segements, and the resists make no sense. This really apppears to be a half-baked armor that has not been touched since the beta. I want to make Lando in disguise... (Surprise, surprise!)
Padded Armor. Although somewhat functional, the special protection experimentation varies from piece to piece. The belt for padded requires a segment and ingredients specific as if it were an armor piece. It is my understanding that belts and bandoliers are supposed to be purely ornamental in nature such as is seen with ubese shirts/bandoliers and mabari belts. In addition, the encumbrances for padded seem very high (especially action which is on par with heavy composite) for what is supposed to be a "modern light combat suit."
Shield Generators. Functionality on these is still flaky. People have to write re-equipping macros to insure that their shields are always up since the generatorsseem to randomlylose effectiveness while equipped. Also, please commit one way or the other on the lightsaber resist issue with these.
RIS Armor. Please fix components that were looted prior to the loot patch that never received serial numbers. The same is true for berserker rifle stabilizers that continue to drop unserialed when looted on the corvette.
Additions/Changes:
As you are probably seeing, craftable faction armors is on just about everyone's list. I'd love to be able to make marine armor, and the various storm trooper/scout trooper/swamp trooper/storm commando/dark trooper armors. I like the idea of faction requirements to craft these - maybe either limited-use schematics or, better yet, rank-restricted purchase of unlimited use schematics. IE, I would have to be an Imperial colonel to be able to purchase dark trooper armor schematics, but only a lieutenant to purchase scout trooper armor schematics. If I ever lose the minimum rank required for a suit, I also lose my security clearance and hence the schematics forsaid faction armor.
Another trend you are seeing in just about every post is asking for other armors to become useful to limit the composite saturation. Adding factional armors is one greatway to address this, and revamping some of the lesser armors is another way. I'd personally love to have a layer slot on adv mabari, chitin, and tantel (once there is an adv tantel segment) segments. This minor addition will enable us to make these armors much more useful for certain niche applications.
HAM/Encumbrance experimentation is too strict at the moment. I get much more benefit putting my expt points into base or special effectiveness, and will only expt on encumbrance once I have maxxed the other two. I would like to see more of an encumbrance reduction per experimentation point to tempt me to make lighter armors (or at least make me feel like it is worth it). Right now, a heavy armor will only have about 20-25% more ham than a light version while having dramatically higher resists given the same layer scheme and resources used.
RIS Armor. Lightsaber resist should be the special protection and kinetic shifted to the base. Also, add acid and even stun to the base. This armor was touted as having "no vulnerabilities" at release and initially didn't until the resist shifting bug was ignored rather than fixed. Fix the bug and make RIS worth the effort. Also, it would be nice to have a color change feature on this armor - it is very easy for a miscommunication to lead to a very very disappointed customer.
Lightsaber layers. I'd love to have another quest seriesthat culminated in getting a schematic for a ligthsaber layer. If you do this, please, oh please, include cortosis siliclastic ore as a resource requirement for continuity reasons.
Storage issues. For any crafter, there are serious issues with storage. Two easy ways to mitigate these woes are to 1)let like reosurces stack to 500k or one million rather than the current 100k, and 2) let loot components with the same serial number stack (nightsister layers, krayt tissue, etc). I think most of my storage space is taken up by sets of loot components earmarked for epic/enhanced armor suits.
Mandolorian Armor. Allow the crafters to choose the color and/or add a color change feature similar to composite. Considering the amount of work required to put together a full suit of this armor, the player who goes through it should at least be able tohave their suit match.
Shield Generators. Add a graphical effect similar to that seen in the movies on droidekas equipped with shields. This minor change would bring a very large smileto my face.
Message Edited by darthbock on 09-10-2004 03:41 PM
Edit - I agree with Sev's point of view that the armorrebalance should skew the entire functionality range rather than just installing a hard cap. Some of us have worked very hard to make high quality armor, and it would be disappointing if a new master with no experience and lackluster material could suddenly produce the same quality armor as someone who has worked for moths to a year at the profession.
Message Edited by darthbock on 09-10-2004 03:45 PM
Egna_Dragonn
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:25 pm
#50
First off, a disclaimer: This is an issue that continues to nag on my mind alone. I do not speak for the artisan community as a whole, and in fact I haven't even posted in an Artisan thread for several months despite it being my first profession and the only profession I've ever mastered (sorry, I'm not cut out to be a power-gamer). As a whole the artisan community is civil and the profession is one of the most mature and stable in the game.
Now onto the real stuff: Artisan is obviously a gateway profession into the more elite crafting professions. From what I've seen mentioned by the devs, original beta-testers, and the state of the profession today, it would appear that originally all elite crafting professions were meant to have dependencies that required artisan goods. For whatever reason as game-design progressed, only Droid Engineers and Architects seem to have retained these dependencies. At several points since the game launched, it has been mentioned or suggested that having a more even balance of these dependencies across the elite professions might solve several problems.A grand discussion of the pros and cons of the various implementations that would accomplish this type of rebalance can be found in a quick search across the forums, and I'm sure TH has some notes on this as well. But for my money, however it is done (and yep it'll be screamed about since it's a *nerf* no matter how creatively you introduce it), there need to be more elite crafting products that require artisan produced subcomponents. The game as a whole has matured to the point where you can predict the amount of new artisans over time versus the amount of players who drop artisan as they progress to an elite crafting profession. The major advantages that come from saddling the elite professions with artisan subcomponents are a more viable income route for pure artisans, an advantage for artisans who take the time to understand their place in the greater crafting economy, and more interaction (there can never be too much interaction) between players.
To those crafters who are about to hit reply: If you need to flame me, either msg me, or start a thread that details how I should be burned in effigy. Tiggs has a good thread going here, the last thing I wanted to do was spoil it with flamebait.
-Egna Dragonn, wanderer and DE based out of Sanctuary, Dantooine (Chilastra)
Sevarhin
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:26 pm
#51
Things I'd like to see:
- Make sure any combat-balance armor changes are *not* just an artificial cap, but a fix that retains the entire competitive range of crafting possibilities, so we don't end up with a "fix" that negates competitive advantage from superior ingredients and effort. For an example of what not to do, look at harvesters - anyone can make BER13 harvs even with subpar material, thanks to the total failure of the crafting quality curve implementation (the max extraction rate is reached far too low on the quality scale), leaving nothing but hopper size to compete with at the high end - a seriously sad state of affairs even compared to what it used to be like. Even the Force Sensitive Experiment tree reward has a detrimental effect on competition, making it easier to achieve top results by increasing the frequency of amazings. That is the wrong way to go for profession longevity. The effect of minute improvements in final quality values on resists should be implified, so there is a wider range of quality possibilities.
- Craftable faction armor (preferably a range of it - with some that require certain ranks, like the ships will). It should be at least a little better than Composite, and VERY similar in crafting requirements (not another goofball requirement armor like wookie armor, please, unless you ease up on housing storage limits - we're flooded in ingredients as it is).
- RIS was implied to be a jedi-hunting armor when it was released... then saber resists were changed from kinetic, but RIS armor was never updated, making it useless for that task. RIS armor needs lightsaber resists.
- I second Aedyl's request for layer slots on advanced segments for lower-level armors like Mabari etc.
- Make sure any combat-balance armor changes are *not* just an artificial cap, but a fix that retains the entire competitive range of crafting possibilities, so we don't end up with a "fix" that negates competitive advantage from superior ingredients and effort. For an example of what not to do, look at harvesters - anyone can make BER13 harvs even with subpar material, thanks to the total failure of the crafting quality curve implementation (the max extraction rate is reached far too low on the quality scale), leaving nothing but hopper size to compete with at the high end - a seriously sad state of affairs even compared to what it used to be like. Even the Force Sensitive Experiment tree reward has a detrimental effect on competition, making it easier to achieve top results by increasing the frequency of amazings. That is the wrong way to go for profession longevity. The effect of minute improvements in final quality values on resists should be implified, so there is a wider range of quality possibilities.
- Craftable faction armor (preferably a range of it - with some that require certain ranks, like the ships will). It should be at least a little better than Composite, and VERY similar in crafting requirements (not another goofball requirement armor like wookie armor, please, unless you ease up on housing storage limits - we're flooded in ingredients as it is).
- RIS was implied to be a jedi-hunting armor when it was released... then saber resists were changed from kinetic, but RIS armor was never updated, making it useless for that task. RIS armor needs lightsaber resists.
- I second Aedyl's request for layer slots on advanced segments for lower-level armors like Mabari etc.
Message Edited by Sevarhin on 09-10-2004 03:32 PM
owako
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:39 pm
#52
Fixing PSGs so you don't have to reequip them before each fight to make them work. This issue has been there since beta.