Armorsmith Archive

First off let me say that as of right now I am neither a Master Artisan, nor a master eLite crafter. However, that will change very soon. Therefore on my daily scouring of the forums, I was shocked to see that in the Top 5 list for Artisans, they want harvestors to have certification. With novice artisan and no survey, they want you to use personal extractors only. As you progress up the survey skill tree, then you can use the medium ones. They want Heavy extractors for themselves, and no one else. Here are some links to the discussions:

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=artisan&message.id=36994
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=artisan&message.id=37151

The artisans feel they are the welfare crafter, and this will help put money back in their pockets. This makes me laugh, because i believe artisan is a novice profession and not really supposed to be making as much money as the elite crafters that spend more skill points.

Currently the arguments for Certs for Harvestors are as follows:

1. "I need scout to skin animals, so why can a non artisan harvest
resources."
2. "This will help put money back in the pockets that need it, namely
artisan community." I laugh at this one, because artisans will
be in a position to price gouge all customers that want bulk
resources in a timely manner, for they alone can get the most
amount of resources , the quickest.

3. "You have to be certified to use the best weapons, so in all
fairness, you should be certified to use best harvestors."


IF we learned anything from this last image designer update, it's that the developers seem to have an affinity to take "Content" from the larger player base and give it to a small community, instead of developing new content for the profession in need of it. One would think that Space Expansion will yield some new schematics, and a new need for artisans to customize the ships.

If this is allowed to considered, and eventually implemented , i feel one or more of the following will happen.

1. Elite Crafters will now be stuck with medium harvestors, unless
the spend skillpoints on Master Artisan. Kiss your combat skill
bye.
2. For those elite crafters that stick to medium harvestors, they
will no longer be able to be self sufficient in getting resources
They will have to tighten their supply and make less items,
and thereby raise their prices. Or they may contract master
artisans to gather their resources, but again this will add to
cost of items.
3. Master artisans will rule the resource market, charging whatever
the market will bear, leading to resource shortages. New
crafters will not be able to compete because they are using their
slow personal harvestors.
4. People that are planning on doing Shipwright will now have to
spend more skill points to harvest materials. Leaving less points
for some sort of combat build. I can already forcee a shortage
ships if this happens.
5. Some elite crafters will in an uproar over this happening.
Less crafters = shorter supply = inflation in prices.

I understand that the most elite crafters don't usually bother with their own resource gathering. THey get guildmates and friends to drop harvestors and they pay them for what they gather. If this change is allowed to happen, using your combat buddies will be a thing of the past, in terms of resource harvesting. Moreover, many also use static lot swaps to get their needed resources. You should be warned that the artisan community wants they ability of static lots through lot trades elminated also.

If this is allowed to happen, then i call for some more changes in the name
of balancing. Feel free to add to this list.

1. Elite ,or best armor should only be worn by people with a master
combat profession.
2. Craftable items, such as harvestors should now be subject to decay
penalites on death. Heck, we have to worry about our armor, why
not let the artisans worry about losing value also. I know this
will not be a popular. IF crafters need protection, they they can
hire combat types to be bodyguards while they make their harvestor
runs.

In conclusion, after all my ranting and raving here I hope that the crafting and not-crafting community will let their voices be heard. DO NOT IMPLEMENT HARVESTOR CERTIFICATIONS. Harvestors are a tool, and i feel that novice artisan should be enough certification for the use of any of them.

-Ho'mer (FLurry)

p.s. sorry for the poor paragraph formatting. Its been awhile since i posted, and didn't try that hard to make it look neat.

/sign for having certs on harvestors...

It's not right for any Jo Bloggs to be able to make millions selling resources without having to spend any points on skills.....

if they grant a cert.. its better that nov elite get cert for heavies... and survey 4 gets cert for mediums... this probably wont happen tho.. if they do that they better remove vendors from all non-merchants

My character is geared towards crafting 100%, so the change would not affect me, when and if it takes place. I can see both sides to the argurment. People are making good points, if they cannot harvest hide without scout, but anyone can place a harvestor, then yes the Dev'sshoulddo something about it.

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AtlantisCH wrote:

You guys realize what this would do to the price of every crafted product right? Thats right, through the roof.

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That, plus the fact that architects will lose a ton of business and you'll also see a ton of people out there with harvesters they can no longer use...