Armorsmith Archive
Thread: Getting to know you and your profession.
VemaGara
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:43 pm
#53
I'm not an armorsmith, but this is just something that I'd like to see more. MORE helmets. All helmets should act like helmets. Helmets should have a wide variety of shapes and forms and colors. Helmets should provide natural resists vs stun and blind and mind bleeds. A helmet should be every combat player's best friend!!!
Helmets are very star-warsy, too! Everyone wore them, from Stormtroopers and AT-AT pilots, to rebels on the Corvette, to the famous rebel pilot helmet. Helmets are just too cool.
Thanks for listening.
Helmets are very star-warsy, too! Everyone wore them, from Stormtroopers and AT-AT pilots, to rebels on the Corvette, to the famous rebel pilot helmet. Helmets are just too cool.
Thanks for listening.
darthbock
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:49 pm
#54
VemaGara wrote:
I'm not an armorsmith, but this is just something that I'd like to see more. MORE helmets. All helmets should act like helmets. Helmets should have a wide variety of shapes and forms and colors. Helmets should provide natural resists vs stun and blind and mind bleeds. A helmet should be every combat player's best friend!!!
Helmets are very star-warsy, too! Everyone wore them, from Stormtroopers and AT-AT pilots, to rebels on the Corvette, to the famous rebel pilot helmet. Helmets are just too cool.
Thanks for listening.
/seconded
I would love to see minor bonuses to armor pieces that make sense - like helmets giving stun and blind protection.
I would also like to see the artwork fixed so that all the player races can wear all of the helms available. My Rodian friend was very disappointed when she could not wear the RIS helm she had worked so hard to gather the materials for.
And sub the art for the "endor rebel commando" (currently an ornamental themepark reward) helmet for the current egghead helmet in marine armor. The color scheme even matches already...
LadyLeala
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:51 pm
#55
Hi again, Tiggs. 
Well, there are a few things I'd like to see with the Artisan profession:
1) Make the Master components (control units, GP mods, etc) have a bigger affect on other professions' equipment. Example: Many weapon schematics call for Control Units. But whether you make very high quality or very low quality Control Units, the end result of the weapon is the same. Yet we can experiment on the Control Units...
2) Speeders should DECAY. Right now, they just basically "run low on gas". You fill them up, and they're right back to how they were when you bought them. What if you made it so that every time you repaired one, the max condition came down a bit? Just like weapons. One thing to note: If you decide to do that, please increase the HAMs on all speeders by 2x or more.
3) Speeder paint kits should be modified to either NOT decay at all, or make it so they work for more than 20 callings. (50 would be great, or even 100) These items are NOT a money maker for Artisans because nobody uses them due to the decay factor.
4) Add a bonus to Surveying at Master Artisan. Increase the range to 400m or even 512m.
5) Make it possible to install a "survey device" into Speeders so we can survey without getting off.
Giamai
Fri Sep 10, 2004 3:52 pm
#56
I think what you can take away from this thread is that there are 3 major issues with artisan right now: small number of really profitable/useful products, a really eccentric powerup crafting system, and a variety of bugs (like the genericcrafting tool issue) that have been around for quite awhile and need to be fixed.
My master artisan characters make the most money on vehicles which could be improved, and there were some great ideas above and in other threads so i won't reiterate them here.
making powerups as a craftingprocess is just plain weird, the randomness makes it a huge pain...but they sell well. i've often wondered why there aren't powerups for armor if there is a place for them on the bazaar. i must have missed something 
But why do vehicles and powerups represent the majority of my income from the artisan line?ok so artisan is the gateway to the elite professions butit would be even better if it was designed more like a jack of all trades in the craftingprofs. we already make the most basic of foods, clothes, armor andweapons but with very limited market for those things,it would be better to have a greater variety of less specialized products to sell and replace those things that have no purpose, like the neimodian birdcage (which is rumored to have an invisible talking bird in it lol)
actually if they fixed the bird, that might sell well lol
basically, i think the biggest thing would be to better balance out the artisan schematics, add some to the vehicle crafting and experimentation, completely change the random powerup crafting thing and add some new things exclusive to the artisan line for greater income potential and make the artisan profession more useful in the game as a whole.
i don't think that artisan is that bad off compared with other professions though...i'll live with what i have if the option is to delay the smuggler revamp yet again 
Rutigrr
Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:16 pm
#57
I think we are all saying the same thing here, and I agree with pretty much everything.
I think if we are gonna have craftable faction armor, you need to be of that faction to make it. It should be a schematic you can purchase from a recruiter for faction points. Anyone can purchase it, but a faction AS should have to make it. So if you want stormy armor you can buy it from an imp recruiter, and an imp AS has to make it for ya. You should also be automatically TEF'd for wearing any faction armor. Be able to put it on without declaring overt, but once you put it on, you get flagged just like a doc healing an overt.
Shield generators should be 100% effective versus any non-kinetic weapon, but they should be crazy encumberance to activate.They should keep their low condition, so that someone can blast thru the shieldsfairly quickly still, but used mostly as a first strike defence, or last ditch effort to stay alive. And considering their size, should take up more space in your inventory. Like 10% of it. Also, if they were slightly radioactive it would be reasonable to assume there would be some damage taken for using them, similar to trying to sample a radioactive from the ground (if you have never tried this, go for it, see what happens).
How about making armor segments for speeders? One of the big pet peeves is someone smashing your speeder to bits on dath or something when you get knocked off it, or while you are laying incapped on the ground. If a comp or similar armor segment could be put in as an optional enhancement for speeders, it might give speeders a fighting chance for survival. Also, might encourage me to actually pull out my AV-21 on dath, as it is, I'm too worried I'm gonna get area attacked by a nightsister and lose my uber-speeder.
How about increasing the spawn rate for some of the resources. I have been an AS for nearly two months, and Cubrian Steel and Kiirium Steel havent spawned once in that time on Kettemoor. Its getting very expensive to purchase these resources, as everyone knows how rare they have become. I had a guy tell me the other day that cubrian was gonna cost me 250cpu!
I would love to know if AS have a bonus to repair armor...I don't see any stats regarding this anywhere on my skill screen. Does Average Joe have the same chance to repair that I do, if we both use the same 99.9% repair tool? Cause it may be just me, but I find I destroy armor just as often as I get minor blemishes, and thats when the condition is still above 75%. Is repairing borked?
I also agree with one of the previous posts about creature harvesting. Considering how much hide it can take to make a suit of armor, its kinda ridiculous to have to try and get it a couple dozen units at a time. (wookiee hunter armor = 765 units of hide, not counting the wooly needed for armor padding. And that's just for ONE suit of hunter armor....Ever wonder why its so hard to find an armorsmith who carried padded armor in stock? It takes 1570 units of hide to make ONE suit of padded!) This has to be the hardest part about being an AS. After mastering AS, with the eng tree of Artisan, you still need novice scout+harvesting4 (to get any decent amounts when you harvest) and at least one elite combat profession to do any killing. By this time we have almost no SP left for anything else. You need to find peep to get the hide for ya, and they charge an arm and leg for anything hard to get, like Naboo Wooly. A mass harvesting system would be very helpful. Like some kind of snare or trap that could be set that would generate creature resources (obviously at a much lower rate than a harvester, im not asking for the moon) by trapping creatures.
I know that's more than one pressing issue, but what can I say, I'm a blabbermouth.
Stegoid
Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:25 pm
#58
Tiggs,
I really appreciate that you would take the time to ask for input.
Well, my biggest current issue is the fact that Artisans (and every other crafting profession) only get Crafting XP when they craft by hand.
Tiggs, if you have been here long enough to understand about the Force Sensitive Village works, and how FS Skills are acquired, then you prolly know that many artisans and crafters want to become Master FS Crafters.
Also, you should know that crafters need to generate HUGE amounts of crafting xp for conversion into Force Sensitive XP.
THE FUNDAMENTAL PROBLEM IS:
Almost everything my Artisan character crafts in "normal game play" is done using factories (GP modules, EMM modules, CU's etc) because crates and crates of these items are needed by other professions - such as my Droid Engineer.
I get ZERO XP for factory crafting and it is easily 95% of my crafting in the Artisan area.
In "normal game play" Artisans only get crafting xp when they craft individual items by hand. So Artisans only get crafting xp for custom orders or very small scale crafting (or GRINDING).
THE IMPACT ON ARTISANS (and all crafting professions):
Recently the "Devs" have been making the point that the new village system is wonderful because we don't have to "grind professions" anymore - we can just "play the game" and get xp for FS skills through "normal game-play"
Well for artisan - "normal game play" include heavy use of factories. And because factories produce ZERO crafting XP, there is a huge obstacle blocking the path of Artisans (or other crafters) that seek FS skills through "normal game play". Since,in "normal game play" Artisans only get crafting xp when they craft individual items by hand.
This means Artisans and their associated elite crafting professions as a whole - are forced to either "Grind their Profession" dozens of times, the old-fashioned way; or do as the devs say and "just play the game" and expect to finish FS skills sometime in the 31st century, when Fry wakes up.
Message Edited by Stegoid on 09-10-2004 04:31 PM
Okram2k
Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:52 pm
#59
Here's my list bout armosmith:
1: (kinda new) We're getting screwed over with FS exp. Fighters can go out and get a box in a couple days, while we have to do enough grinding (not just normal making of armor but big time heavy duty grinding) for prolly half a year or even longer if we wanted to get all of FS crafting. This is utter bull crap and the numbers need to be redone to make it more even, something, anything, needs to be done, and done soon.
2: SWG is the ONLY starwars game that Personal Shield Generators DO NOT resist light sabers. Every single other Star Wars game (Jedi Knight I, II, Outcast and Knights of the Old Republic) has Personal Shield Generators, and they ALL block against light sabers. Please, let the Armorsmiths at least have something that we can produce to offere at least somewhat of a defence against sabers.
3: Ubese and Composite have no competition when it comes to resistances, so the universe has become a two armor galaxy. Padded, tantel, chitin, mabari all need to be improved a bit and have better uses. Currently Chitin is the only other armor that has a special resist that is actually worth while. Padded can be pretty good, but it's heavy organic resource requirements make it more expensive then composite, and not as good.
4: We need a way to increase the avilability of Harvested Organics. Armorsmiths are at the mercey of the Ranger profession. Every type of armor requires wooly hide, anda good spawn of wooly hide on a planet where it is easily available usually gets into the 30-40 credits per unit range (depending on the server) but when it's in a not so easily harvestable place it can go to 100+ credits per unit. We need a way to increase harvesting rates to match the demand for hide, and with very few rangers available for contract, hide costs will just get higher and higher and will make armor more and more expensive.
5: Some way to improve stocking of armor on to vendors would greatly improve our effeciency and take a lot of time out of the most tedious part of selling armor. Some great ideas that have been bounced around:
-Make it so that I can put up a crate on the vendor and tell it to sell each piece individually for a price I tell it.
-Create an "armor locker" type container that I can create a schematic for to put into my factory all the pieces I want inside of it, the factory then takes all the peices from teh crates of armor and puts them into the armor locker. The armor lockers then can be placed on a vendor and when examined the stats of all pieces inside of the locker will be listed. The person can then buy the armor locker and take all the pieces of armor out for themselves and happily buy his armor without worrying about some schmuck trying to rip him off with everything packed up in a backpack he can't examine.
Kalano
Fri Sep 10, 2004 4:52 pm
#60
I been thinking about this a lot so i haven't posted for a few days. I been trying to chew over everyones thoughts and opinions, and no one is wrong for that at all.
I think one of the biggest problems that causebig argument in Droid Engineer forum,and crafting in general, from artisan to all the elites, is the fact of experimentation. It is stuck in a way so that the up and comers have to grind a long time to get anywhere competitive. And we all know how fun, time consuming, and costly grinding can be. Except for Artisan, you have two lines to get all the points and still you are really no where able to compete, no real market for non master artisan items except power-ups. Oh be still my beating heart.
I know this is against the devs orginal thoughts and feelings one how crafting its, but I honestly think that if you become a novice, you should be allowed to have 10 or maybe just 9 experiment points, leaving the last 1 or 2 for master only. This would reduce the amount of grinding, and also open up one teir for new crafting items or a reoginization of where the items are place.Items placed in a way of one teir being final product and the new open teir being all the required items for the final product.It would open a whole new style of game. You could end up possably with items of all types of qualities and people can then pick and choose how far to go up. It would allow a crafter to pick and choose what he/she wants to create.
It would open people to do many different crafting things, and maybe be a better combat or crafter, even master merchant and not have to compete on every level just to get a business going. Maybe it will allow someone to just to create the resistant armor attachments which they sell to someone else who chooses they want to make the best chitin armor but not wanting to grind to master. This of course will work best after a CB/CR that, urg.....i hate to say it but, nerfs composite and the other armors to be more valuable to consumers. Maybe someone just wants to go into making only meele weapons but don't have to master weaponsmith to compete. they end up making awsome weapons but only meele since they didn't go up the other tiers. Blah blah blah blah, i think you get my point.
The other major problem i see is there is now way to have mid level items. there is no middle class in the game, either you are high class, master of some profession and able to make millions of credits in a day. Or you are poor grinding your buttocks off to make enough to get that next item that will make life a little bit easier. there is no poor man composite, there is no poor man rocket launchers. yes, there is the poor man's homes, because no one wants to pay the price for a house that is more than 3cpu. lack of reason to experiment and fine quality items for architects. There needs to be a way, which i have not figured out anything that is guarentied to work, that will create a middle class society in the game. There is not enought reason to buy a weapon that is decent, but what is decent in the game is a top quality factory made gun and the top is the one with loot drop items. Well, IMO, the only way to get close to being able to possibly make a middle class society is first to balance the combat out of the game. unfortunatly you have to buy the top bin items to compete. it is too easy for a 80%+ resist composite, buffed, master combatant to make several mill in an hour, while those who are new to the game or just creating a new characture, have nothing to start out with. Bone armor is crap, even for a new characture, it is crap. It only resist energy damage which, every critter is kinetic and only the very low end npcs do. (i am not even 50% positive on that either)
Ok, i think i know how to solve the second problem a bit, not positive on it either, but, low end items need to be more variable in it resistance, ie: bone armor, mambari, chitten, need to be able to resist possibly more damages or changed to resist different damgages. Make them worth buying and using. More types of damages on low end weapons instead of all be energy damage which is the first thing everything can resist in the game. So, basiclly, low end variety so that we can have a Walmart type vendors out there that actually are worth some merchants time and efforts.
I never really gone past Master Artisan for the fact that there really is not any crafting dabblers, the system doesn't allow such to happen. You have to at least grind two teirs to make really good items, never the best to make something worth while. I am sorry, but no one makes any low armor nor a single weapon for sell when they only have 1, 2, or even 8 experiment points. The item is crappy, and will cost you more HAM and health than it will hurt you opponent, be it NPC or a Player. The crafting system is not broke, just slanted to only the ones willing to sacrifice a lot of their characture to a master-hood to just be able to make something someone wants.
All i can ask you is for you to chew over my post, yeah, there is probably more holes than swiss cheese but i think it might be a way to go too. Let me know what you think, you brothers and sisters in crafting.
Ok, for a quick little spill of what I would like to also see, these just item stuff.
1. More or better weapons other than CDEF weapons which are used only in novice marksman. (very limited market, oh wait, there is no market for them)
2. Bone armor able to resist kinetic damage. (This armor is even worthless for newbs and is really crappy resistance, and advance bone armor plates are made by Armorsmiths 1,0,0,0. Why not Master Artisans? Were the only ones that make bone armor)
3. More vehicle types, like all the others before me have stated. (Have the Master Artisan components used in the vehicles and allow more experimentation in the vehicles, like said before. Speed, HAM, terrain neg. ect.)
4. A CH bird to put in the bird cage. (It would make it more valuable than justto use as a base for a chandelier)
5. Master Artisan need to be more special, ie: more experimation points, a greater survey range or even allow to see stats from the survey droids when sent to other planets, advance bone armor plates (yes, i said it in #2 but why stop saying it?), maybe some more food items (maybe something that gives you a funky hair style for 10min......ok, j/k). Make me want to bea Master Artisan, since it isn't a requirement for any advance profession.
6. Ok, here is my final pipe dream, Make Master Artisan a requirement for Advanced Vehicle Engineer, ie: combat ground vehicles, multi-passanger vehicles, mobile homes like the Sand Crawler, Repulsure lifts like the Snow Speeder. HINT HINT HINT.......am I being to sudtle
shylady
Fri Sep 10, 2004 5:53 pm
#61
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.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
i knew that. maybe i just miss understood one of these posts
AltharXXX
Fri Sep 10, 2004 6:12 pm
#62
Heya Tiggs,
1. Powerups. We need more types of them. It's one thing to mess about for hours trying to get a speed/damage range powerup - by trial and error (oneach type.) Make more powerups where we get 4 bars to experiment on and we directly control the affect of the powerup. We need more melee powerups too. (Wouldn't be horrible to put some new powerups under master artisan.)
2. Vehicle customization kit. (this is true of all the customizations) the duration is too short. Remove decay on the change andcharges (1-shot) or make the change stick for at least a week. These also require a DE to make (ironic isn't it) removing that requirement would be nice.
3. Vehicle naming / data pad... This isn't purely an artisan item. If I have 3 swoops on my datapad, I have no really way of determining which is at 5% condition and which is at 100% condition. Being able to name them would be nice. Showing more information on the data pad would be good too. (I'd like to be able to rename droids and vehicles just as I can rename waypoints...)
(( I agree with most of the others about more vehicles and experimentation on them. and show packages need drag and drop - as well as capacity to hold crates of fireworks...))
JWing
Fri Sep 10, 2004 8:04 pm
#63
Zandergeef wrote:
It would be nice to have a bonus in master artisan.. like surveying or experimentation. Its sad that you can get all the experimenting points you need in just doing two lines.. reward the people who get master artisan. That being said artisan is in good shape and other professions need much more help.. for example look at my sig.
exactly....
Plus make the Clothing Attachments WORK for us, and make us stand out. 12 point Weaponsmiths and Armorsmiths are the cream of the crop. Do the same for us!!
Snikrop
Fri Sep 10, 2004 8:10 pm
#64
Tiggs wrote:Since I am the new kid on the block I would like to take issue with your profession right now. Wait! Don't think this class is important.
This is simply so that I can discuss further with the team. I am going through a few professions at a time so I will get to the other forums in time
Isn't it about time you told us about your experiences crafting in SWG?
"1. "Give us your top 5 issues via your correspondent!"
2. "We're going to get to them, but in the mean time work with your correspondent to get a new top five."
3. "We have two teams for this game, and the live team is going to be completely independent of the extortion pack folks, so we'll see no slow down."
4. "We're running behind (again) and so we need to make a new list of top issues/bugs in your profession."
5. "Uhhhh we're getting really behind, so we're going back on our word, taking the live team off of developement and completing what will hopefully be a cash cow so we don't have to listen to your whining anymore."
6. "We need a list of baby bug fixes and changes that will tide you over until we've gotten hundreds of your dollars."
7. "We're like moving and stuff so nobody will be available to take your call until like next week sometime..."
8. "Give us your top 5!"
Honestly, how many times has a list of bug fixes gone completely unfixed, only to have the Dev's try to tell us that the changes aren't going to happen any time soon and to resubmit the changes in a simpler form for them?"
This wasn't even composed recently...
Message Edited by Snikrop on 09-10-2004 11:23 PM
Elyssa
Fri Sep 10, 2004 9:18 pm
#65
I'd like the paintjobs for vehicles look better.
As it is, the colors are weak and they look like bad spray paint jobs.
And while we're on the subject of vehicles, I'd like for the deed to look like the vehicle, much the way droids do.