Armorsmith Archive
Thread: CURB Armor experimentation oversimplified
Ruebacca wrote:
I think thay want the tip the balance from the larg 12pt production smith to the 10pt guild smith. alt AS are basicly worthless right now. If you dont have skill tapes and spend months harvesting the best resorces; you make junk. AS will become like SW. The guild SW is usful, he/she can make stuff as well as anyone else. The guild AS makes heavy-low base junk. This is what thay are changing. My speculation...lol.
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just because they nerf AS's resources to level the playing field, they're still going to have the same problem 6months from now. There will always be someone doing it longer then the next person who starts grinding AS and they are going to have the same problem that there is now.
We all started out with someone collecting resources longer then us. And yet with time and patience we all were able to compete in the same league as the old-timers.
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/agree
people who focus and stay committed to the profession will rise above the rest. With time. But thay can change the game to the point ware this differance is small or very small.
Could be a great smith in the future will be a better at marketing on picking good colar combinations.
Brutus_Krylop wrote:
I'll go one step further and say that if they really wanted to reduce the "uber armors" or whatever, the easiest way to do it while still retaining the old crafting style would have been to make encumberances mean something (looks like hindrances will do that), and then eliminate armor slicing. Then you really have choices.
But I suppose the smuggler community would raise yet another ruckus about that. Oh well.
Thula wrote:
So it is finally confirmed in the CU testing, Armorsmiths have seen a creative and challenging profession being reduced to a mining operation. We now have only one line to experiment on (resistance) which means we might as well pour our resources into a black box and get the end product out, the result is given by the resources and loot.
Why does our profession have to be oversimplified? Look around the forum, you will see that the proudest moments for our members are when they managed to juggle the resources, loot and experimentation right to get that elusive high resist / 0 encumbrance piece of armor (usually RIS). Where is the challenge now?
We are not stupid, we like challenges! We like to tweak and experiment, make a small discovery in the crafting that puts us a small step ahead of our neighbor. I say “we” because I am sure there are others that share my sentiments. I am sure that there is a large group out there that enjoy AS because of the challenges it could present, and that is not a target group your Marketing Department should forget…
I can handle new resource requirements, I can handle not being able to wear my own products, I am delighted with all the new armors types. But I am afraid I will be bored to death with this system.
Please Blixtev, give us challenges, give us choices! That is what makes this a fun and interesting game. Give us the opportunity to experiment on hindrances, or some other aspect that makes a difference. And make it a real option! Before the Doc super-buffs there was a real choice and some careful balancing that had to be done during experimentation. Post CU, everyone will be wearing the new clone armors (different appearances but equal stats), that is not very interesting in the long run.
I am looking forward to your reply, respectfully yours
In the first pass of armor we had toned down much of the encumbrance to just subtract from your efficiency stats. There was a choice between encumbrance/protection until the HAM system was pulled near themiddle of our internal alpha. All of a sudden even the modified encumbrance system didnt make sense after we had removed all the old stats. We deemed that if we reasonably expected most combat professions to wear armor they shouldn't have to suffer a massive loss of combat effectiveness. Hence the removal of "encumbrace".
Looking at Protection and Hindrance we see the following pattern(or should). As a smith raises the protection stats, the Base hindrance amounts will also rise. The hindrance system is a built in mechanism to keep players of the correct advancement level wearing the correct pieces of armor. This built in system prevents players from abusing any potential errant items, slicing etc. How does it do this?The combat professions are granted a series of "mitigators" if their mitigator is below the hindrance on the armor, then they suffer combat effectiveness/movement penalties for it. Smiths can push the envelope, however if broken loot drops ever get into the game, this should prevent players from wanting to use them because it would drive their hindrances up. This means we cannot let players experiment on this facet.
This leaves us with Condition and Protection and a much simplified system of armor crafting. This means a fairly straight forward crafting process. I did convert many of the old useless loot drops into a way to enhance armor, as well as modifying one of the RIS quest rewards so it would be useful on all armor, and you can see the Bio-Enhancement slot as well in there. This means much of how "good" a smith is will be judged on how they fiddle with the small add-ons you can put into the crafting. It should be a vastly easier process obtaining these as they now come in stacks.
Just wanted to give you an answer to why encumbrance was removed.
Blixtev wrote:
Thula wrote:
So it is finally confirmed in the CU testing, Armorsmiths have seen a creative and challenging profession being reduced to a mining operation. We now have only one line to experiment on (resistance) which means we might as well pour our resources into a black box and get the end product out, the result is given by the resources and loot.
Why does our profession have to be oversimplified? Look around the forum, you will see that the proudest moments for our members are when they managed to juggle the resources, loot and experimentation right to get that elusive high resist / 0 encumbrance piece of armor (usually RIS). Where is the challenge now?
We are not stupid, we like challenges! We like to tweak and experiment, make a small discovery in the crafting that puts us a small step ahead of our neighbor. I say “we” because I am sure there are others that share my sentiments. I am sure that there is a large group out there that enjoy AS because of the challenges it could present, and that is not a target group your Marketing Department should forget…
I can handle new resource requirements, I can handle not being able to wear my own products, I am delighted with all the new armors types. But I am afraid I will be bored to death with this system.
Please Blixtev, give us challenges, give us choices! That is what makes this a fun and interesting game. Give us the opportunity to experiment on hindrances, or some other aspect that makes a difference. And make it a real option! Before the Doc super-buffs there was a real choice and some careful balancing that had to be done during experimentation. Post CU, everyone will be wearing the new clone armors (different appearances but equal stats), that is not very interesting in the long run.
I am looking forward to your reply, respectfully yours
In the first pass of armor we had toned down much of the encumbrance to just subtract from your efficiency stats. There was a choice between encumbrance/protection until the HAM system was pulled near themiddle of our internal alpha. All of a sudden even the modified encumbrance system didnt make sense after we had removed all the old stats. We deemed that if we reasonably expected most combat professions to wear armor they shouldn't have to suffer a massive loss of combat effectiveness. Hence the removal of "encumbrace".
Looking at Protection and Hindrance we see the following pattern(or should). As a smith raises the protection stats, the Base hindrance amounts will also rise. The hindrance system is a built in mechanism to keep players of the correct advancement level wearing the correct pieces of armor. This built in system prevents players from abusing any potential errant items, slicing etc. How does it do this?The combat professions are granted a series of "mitigators" if their mitigator is below the hindrance on the armor, then they suffer combat effectiveness/movement penalties for it. Smiths can push the envelope, however if broken loot drops ever get into the game, this should prevent players from wanting to use them because it would drive their hindrances up. This means we cannot let players experiment on this facet.
This leaves us with Condition and Protection and a much simplified system of armor crafting. This means a fairly straight forward crafting process. I did convert many of the old useless loot drops into a way to enhance armor, as well as modifying one of the RIS quest rewards so it would be useful on all armor, and you can see the Bio-Enhancement slot as well in there. This means much of how "good" a smith is will be judged on how they fiddle with the small add-ons you can put into the crafting. It should be a vastly easier process obtaining these as they now come in stacks.
Just wanted to give you an answer to why encumbrance was removed.
on how they fiddle with the small add-ons????????
You mean how many millions we are willing to pay the fighters for the add-ons that "PLUG INTO" the slot? Come on. Why don't you just completely remove experimentation. Heck while you're at it just remove crafting completely. It seems that's the direction we are going.
Will Bio-Engineered Fiberplast Panels and Reinforced Fiberplast panels now correctly add modifiers? or Can you put the Bio-Engineered pieces straight into armor?
Shann0w wrote:
Blixtev wrote:
Thula wrote:
So it is finally confirmed in the CU testing, Armorsmiths have seen a creative and challenging profession being reduced to a mining operation. We now have only one line to experiment on (resistance) which means we might as well pour our resources into a black box and get the end product out, the result is given by the resources and loot.
Why does our profession have to be oversimplified? Look around the forum, you will see that the proudest moments for our members are when they managed to juggle the resources, loot and experimentation right to get that elusive high resist / 0 encumbrance piece of armor (usually RIS). Where is the challenge now?
We are not stupid, we like challenges! We like to tweak and experiment, make a small discovery in the crafting that puts us a small step ahead of our neighbor. I say “we” because I am sure there are others that share my sentiments. I am sure that there is a large group out there that enjoy AS because of the challenges it could present, and that is not a target group your Marketing Department should forget…
I can handle new resource requirements, I can handle not being able to wear my own products, I am delighted with all the new armors types. But I am afraid I will be bored to death with this system.
Please Blixtev, give us challenges, give us choices! That is what makes this a fun and interesting game. Give us the opportunity to experiment on hindrances, or some other aspect that makes a difference. And make it a real option! Before the Doc super-buffs there was a real choice and some careful balancing that had to be done during experimentation. Post CU, everyone will be wearing the new clone armors (different appearances but equal stats), that is not very interesting in the long run.
I am looking forward to your reply, respectfully yours
In the first pass of armor we had toned down much of the encumbrance to just subtract from your efficiency stats. There was a choice between encumbrance/protection until the HAM system was pulled near themiddle of our internal alpha. All of a sudden even the modified encumbrance system didnt make sense after we had removed all the old stats. We deemed that if we reasonably expected most combat professions to wear armor they shouldn't have to suffer a massive loss of combat effectiveness. Hence the removal of "encumbrace".
Looking at Protection and Hindrance we see the following pattern(or should). As a smith raises the protection stats, the Base hindrance amounts will also rise. The hindrance system is a built in mechanism to keep players of the correct advancement level wearing the correct pieces of armor. This built in system prevents players from abusing any potential errant items, slicing etc. How does it do this?The combat professions are granted a series of "mitigators" if their mitigator is below the hindrance on the armor, then they suffer combat effectiveness/movement penalties for it. Smiths can push the envelope, however if broken loot drops ever get into the game, this should prevent players from wanting to use them because it would drive their hindrances up. This means we cannot let players experiment on this facet.
This leaves us with Condition and Protection and a much simplified system of armor crafting. This means a fairly straight forward crafting process. I did convert many of the old useless loot drops into a way to enhance armor, as well as modifying one of the RIS quest rewards so it would be useful on all armor, and you can see the Bio-Enhancement slot as well in there. This means much of how "good" a smith is will be judged on how they fiddle with the small add-ons you can put into the crafting. It should be a vastly easier process obtaining these as they now come in stacks.
Just wanted to give you an answer to why encumbrance was removed.
on how they fiddle with the small add-ons????????
You mean how many millions we are willing to pay the fighters for the add-ons that "PLUG INTO" the slot? Come on. Why don't you just completely remove experimentation. Heck while you're at it just remove crafting completely. It seems that's the direction we are going.
Message Edited by Quizz on 04-08-2005 12:57 PM
Message Edited by Quizz on 04-08-2005 12:59 PM
I will definitely drop armorsmith once there won't be anything to try out because every armor is nearly the same.
Encumbrance goes away, ok, but why shouldn't an armorsmith be able to experiment on the hinderance? If you developers tweak it well it won't be any kind of imbalance. But it would solve the problem for armorsmiths a bit.
Shann0w wrote:I just saw something very interesting. I doubleclicked on the SWG icon on my desktop. SWG starts loading, I see the little box telling about receiving files. Boy did I get a surprise. The message says receiving file...The file name was very long but right in the middle of it was "eq2"
I saw that this morning. Something like XX_eq2envXXXXX.xml
Blixtev wrote:
Quizz wrote:
Boy of Boy....you are officially a full time crafter now and will not have any time to do anything else.
Can anyone say "full-time hand-crafter"
Don't you think that "top armor" that the player who wants to obtain all the different widgets should be handcrafted? You can still pump out runs and runs of armor to keep up with mass demands. However as I was chatting with the folks in the Armor smith PA on Test yesterday, the goal is to use the factories to mass produce cores and then drop the cores into appearances on demand.
Please give some feedback on the amount of time to produce a crate of cores on test, I'd really like to know if the process is now significantly longer.