Armorsmith Archive
Thread: Sate of the Armorsmith Profession and Top 5 Issues Rough Rough Draft
March 10th Updates and Revisionsin Green
Okay disclaimer: This is a rought draft, and I will be polishing it up a bit. (And yes, I know my spelling and grammar is not the best!)
State of the Armorsmith Profession: March 9th, 2005
Currently, the armorsmith profession is inan odd state, we are enjoying a very profitable and enjoyable existance, yet we have a very uncertain future. With a looming complete rehaul of combat in the futurevia the Combat Upgrade, and being told that armor, which isa very important part of combat, will be rehauled during the combat upgrade, we are very uncertain about our place in the post Combat Upgrade world. And with a very tight non disclosure agreement, those that have been invited to the combat upgrade testing cannot tell what information they have seen, although repeated reports from Team Armadillo are very excited and happy with upcoming changes, many are still both extremly curious and uncertain where to take their buisness.
Outside of Combat upgrade concerns, the armorsmith profession has continued to grow, developing better and stronger armor for players. There has always been, and continues to be, a concern about the difficulty of entering the Armor market. It is very difficult for a young armorsmith who is inexperienced, and not yet able to aquire many high quality resources to compete toe-to-toe with those who have been playing the profession for a year or longer. One still has to realize that just like every other profession, the person who invests the most time, credits, and effort into their profession will become the best in the server. Aquiring Armor Experimentation tapes, although very expensive, has become a right of passage for experienced armorsmiths, and has become the expected norm for achieving high quality status.
Armor crafting in my opinion has grown to be one of the best balanced crafting profesions. Long factory times, however anoying they are, and our need for organics in all armor keeps our production rates in check, and keeps one person from controlling an entire market without a huge amount of effort.Also,because of the high decay rate of armor, and the large quantities of players that use it, there is a very large demand for armor produced by the combat community. The combination of the two makes it near imposible for a single person, or even a small group of people to completly control the armor market oneven the smallest servers. This greatly benifits those entering the market, as they can fill in the gaps left by those who have been in the market for a long time, and slowly work up the ranks as their products increase in quality over time.
Over the last few months, we have also seens several key issues of ours resolved. Primarily is the continued debate over light saber resistances, especially if they are a bug or not. This issue severly heated up after anti-decay kits where introduced and inserted into PSGs, which where designed for only short use. Although the issue has been somewhat cleared up by development that PSGs are supposed to have LS resistance, there is still worry from the jedi community that sliced PSGs have become too powerful, this is also felt by the fener community who's primary PvP weapon is the stun baton, which is completly shut out by the same PSGs much more worse than a Jedi's Light Saber. It is, however, believed that this issue will be further resolved in the combat upgrade.
We have also had an issue with RIS components not dropping. For a time span of about a month, all RIS loots where completly dried up, creating a small and anoying dry spell on many servers for RIS production. Luckily this issue has been fixed, and although at first the drop rates where slightly too much, it apears in the last patch that drop rates have been put back into line in order to keep RIS a rare and exotic armor type that a few select elite armorsmiths have been able to make a very nice and enjoyable buisness out of producing.
With the combat upgrade coming closer and closer, I have decided it would be best, rather than create a top 5 issues, we make a top 5 combat upgrade concerns list. Especially considering many things may be changing about armor in the future, and what is an issue now has a high probability of being addressed in the combat upgrade, I figured it would be best to collect our top concerns about combat upgrade.
1: Resources and components in the Combat Upgrade
This is most likely at the forefront of every armorsmiths mind. A crafter's value is determined greatly by their resources, and we do not want years of aquiring resources to completly have gone to waist if there are drastic changes to armor in the combat upgrade. We hope that if we can produce good quality composite now, we should be able to make just as good quality composite after the combat upgrade. If I can make good padded armor now, I should be able to make good padded armor in the combat upgrade. Same for all types of armors. Also, a big worry is armor components, both crafted and looted. Depending on how much the system changes, there is big worry about how good exceptional looted components will be changed and usedafter the combat upgrade. And the same goes for player crafted components. It would be a virtual nightmare if thousands of resources you invested into components before combat upgradeareno longer usedin the combat upgrade. If the new system does in fact require a component change of any sort, at least a warning oftwo weeks or more is possibleto give us a heads up to hold off on producing components, or even better introduce the components before the launch of the combat upgrade so that we can have them ready to go when the combat upgrade comes.
2: RIS and other exceptional armor
RIS armor is an extremly prestigous and luxery armor, that many players have set their life time goal to collecting an entire suit to themselves. This expensive and vastly time consuming endevor should not be ruined because of possible changes to the armor system. If anything, allow people to wear it decorativly when they feel like "pimping" the local starport. While at the same time, it is hoped that some of the amazing pieces of RIS that some armorsmiths have managed to make should still be legendarily good post Combat Upgrade. Some armorsmiths managing to make perfect resist, and perfect encumberance RIS, ought to have such excellent armor post combat upgrade. At the same time, there is further worry about other types of armors crafted with exceptional loot resources. For example, a piece of composite made with an exceptional Night Sister Shard that has almost no encumberance, or super high base composite. We hope all of these will be just as good in the combat upgrade world as they are now when compared to other armors.
3: Factional Armors
We are very excited about Factional Armor in the combat upgrade, but we are worried about their implementation. The demand for factional armor is going to be extremly high when they are relased, we expect a large number of people to want it, and we will need to be able to provide it en mass. We are conserded if it will be a single use schematic like the current looted furniture schematics that cannot be made in factories, or if they will be like Imperial Protoype Personal Shield Generators where we recieve a 5 use factory enabled schematic that will allow us to equip our fellow faction members with the armor they need to be victourous on the battle field.
4: Encumberances post Combat Upgrade
Encumberance currently has a back seat status to many armorsmtihs. Although it is still a valuable aspect of armor, reaching resistances has become more important then reaching lower encumberance most of the time. Especially with the vast availabilty of Buffs to all players for a relativly low price, many do not even take encumberance into acount. Some of us are looking for an official word of what direction armor will be going post Combat Upgrade so we can start preparing for it now. If lighter armor is going to be the primary demand, then we could begin working on ways to decrease encumberance, if heavy armor is still going to be king we can keep moving forward with heavy armors. Similarily, we would love for devs to look into the encumberance experimentation lines during the crafting process, as they continue to be the least fruitful when it comes to amount reduced per experimentation. In the current system, you get far more results for points put into increasing resistances then you do for putting points into decreasing HAM encumberance and increasing conditions.
5: PSGs in the Combat Upgrade
PSGs are in a very odd role currently. They add a second layer of armor of protection that blocks a very limited number of attacks. They are very handy for high end PvE or in PvP but they are very short lived. Unless a player uses an anti-decay kit inside a PSG, one usually only lasts a few attacks. And while this high rate of decay is theoretically very benificial to the armorsmith, very few players find it worth while to invest in PSGs. Further their buggy nature of having shifting stats, and sometimes not even blocking damage unless you unequip and re-equip one. Also, some of us have asked if it is possible for a graphical representation to tell other players that someone is equiped with a PSG, which can be very handy when trying to sum up your opponent in PvP
Okay here it is, feedback is very welcome, and I will be going through it a couple times with a fine comb to try to get all the spelling mistakes out.
Message Edited by Okram2k on 03-10-2005 03:34 PM
I would also hope that in the course of the combat upgrade would fix the Tantel shifting stats issue or what's the point of making them.
Shoudl I continue to hold stock and slice armour or stop until after CU?
Vadvagool wrote:
i agree with the newb Armorsmith thing. I am getting to Master soon. I do not know how i will manage to stack up agaist all the Armorsmtihs on Chilastra.
I also agree. I only recently made master, but since I didn't grind much I've had quite a while to survey and stock up on some pretty good resources, such that I can make 80%kin 68% base comp. Pretty sure I need better resources to get more than that really at the mo.
Anyway, the way up was a hard and long one. If the devs want others to play AS rather than grind AS I would make a few suggestions:
1) Give a little more xp per item for the lower items.
2) Increase usage xp for these lower items (and maybe let it accumulate (at a lower rate maybe) when offline (dunno what the situ on this is btw))
3) Change the experimentation line to give a couple more points at lower levels, enables the making of more saleable armour. (not trying to compete with Master, but the difference in Ubese made at 4444 and at master is startling) perhaps +20 at Novice, then+15 all the way up the Expline with an additional +20 at Master. /shrug
4) Oh, and change FS crafting xp requirements - whayyyyyyyy too much!
Of course, there may be many reasons why these are all bad ideas and get shot down in flames!
For my part I grinded until AS 1002 then started making Chitin pieces for sale on the bazaar. The market is there for cheap Energy/Kin protection for the beginning players but it's d@mn difficult, especially if you don't have a rich guild or supporting character behind you.
Maybe things post CURB will be better, if armours other than Comp (or perhaps Ubese for general hunting) become commonly used.
Cheers!
that would be rockin.As for the faction armor, rumor has it, it's gotten by faction points. That part is going to kill me cause I do all my killing of Imps in space (Fish were ment to fly).
those anti decay kits are a tad excessive. IF I WAS DEV (anyone know if Sony is hiring, am an out of work programmer doing sys admin contracts, Save the fish please!), I'd have the decay kits as a booster item, still anti decay to a point, say, incrase of the condition by, hmm 1 Mil ? that way the item lives longer, it dies out it dies out eventualy. each type of item would have a boosted life span, not an infinite life span.
or.... Just have premissions set that a user can only have one item with a decay kit, cause I have a feelin some have more then one kit ( hides from lynch mob)
Baccarat wrote:Looks good Kron. As far as RIS drops goes, the shifting drop rates are driving me (and I imagine others) crazy, trying to figure out what they are worth and what to charge. In a way it wouldn't matter what the drop rate was as long as it wasn't zero, and as long as it stayed constant for some time.Something else that doesn't bother me much but might bother others is the brokeness of the Armor Repair mod. I don't have any particular desire to be other peoples armor mechanic, but there may other mods that could be substituted that would be more interesting (armor customization maybe, for a bigger palette?).A concern alot of smiths have which comes of our ignorance of how future changes will work, is what will happen to existing armor and armor components, crafted or looted, at the CU. Of course this is still being figured out but some kind of public statement could be useful ("All existing armor and components will be adjusted proportionately so that armor crafted prepublish and post publish give similar results"). I also like the idea of RIS becoming uniquely un-nerfed.
I agree that RIS should remain unique, I like the idea that after all that time crafting, and selling and a little grinding, and the beef with lack of storage (Amen they uped the amount that people and buildings could hold, Amen), That there would be something speical for us to do or create ( one reason am lookin forward to the CU).
The Devs are still in the testing phase, what would most likely happen is at the end or near the end of the testing phase justbefore it goes live would be such a Disclaimer. It may be a game to us, but the back end is still Corp.
what I'd like to see is a tad more easier to obtain wooly hide for wook armor. Namely the naboo wooly. wookies and Ithorians have light, med, and heavy armor. Seems strange to me that I can build the light and heavy armor, but I am having issues getting enough Naboo wooly (I'm on the Flurry server).
Another interesting note; http://pc.ign.com/articles/594/594329p1.html?fromint=1 Rage of the wookies
See now, this is what I have been waiting for
hopefully new wookie armor.
As the mayor I get admin to the cloning center.. it's turned into a warehouse for RIS components
Wallid wrote:
I agree that RIS should remain unique, I like the idea that after all that time crafting, and selling and a little grinding, and the beef with lack of storage (Amen they uped the amount that people and buildings could hold, Amen), That there would be something speical for us to do or create ( one reason am lookin forward to the CU).