Artisan Archive
Thread: Time to get to work.
Hello everyone.
I have just been appointed the artisan correspondent. It is quite an honor, considering the competition. But I will not be taking time to rest on my laurels.
I do have a few biases, which I will point out here so that everyone knows where I am coming from. I am not blinded by them, and am willing to engage ANY well thought out argument. I am not your leader, I am your representative.
I am opposed to macro sampling (any unattended macroing for that matter). I believe that bug fixes need to be done before balancing. And I believe that Artisans need a role in the 'Star Wars' part of the game - including the GCW.
I will not respond to flames/trolling, and will report any that I see in this forum to the moderators. I will not conduct any of my duties through the private message system - everything I say to the community wil be to the WHOLE community (please do not PM me, I read the boards daily - just post here). Viewpoints that I do not agree with WILL see the light of day in the Correspondent forum, as long as a valid argument is made.
I will do my best to be an advocate for you, and am always welcome to your suggestions/thoughts. Thank you for this opportunity.
Bianca Minola
The "pure" powergamer will macro & PvE exploit their way to mastering every profession then get bored and quit. Good riddance.
Most competitive players will race to be the 1st to master a profession on their server and then comfortably explore all that their profession can do. They will get a lot, but not the most out of content in the game.
I feel the style that should be validated the most is a slow exploration of content while gaining experience for contributing to the community.
To accomplish that we need more useful low-level items, increased experimentation usefulnes at lower levels, and a genuinely healthy game economy where up & coming crafters can compete with the masters.
Nice post Bianca. 
The root problem with sampling isn't afk macroing or power gamers getting rich, it is that sampling is really really boring. When I did afk sampling, I didn't know about macros. I just hit sample and walked away from the computer. Why? Because I had nothing else to do. It is just poor game design. When TV becomes more interactive than a video game, you know something is wrong. With that said, sampling should be more interesting and engaging. The recent changes have donenothing to make getting survey 4 more exciting.
Course sampling for 8 hours straight after you hit survey 4 just to get cheap resources while you sleep or go to work is simply wrong. You should be buying a harvester from me instead. 
I do hope we find some ways to make artisans more important and not just an annoyance to get to a better profession. I gave up master artisan before and only recently became a master again, mostly for crafting stations and making pet food.
Create a minor harvesting structure, that can be create at engineering I, and that can harvest everything, with low maintenance and low power, low resources requirements, but with low outcome ( say around 500 a day at max ), this will allow low level artisan to get some resources to go up the tree.
Change the way sampling is working, whatever is the level you should only be able to get 1 resource at a time, say every 30s as today. And the survey tree should just change the chances you have to get this resources at hand ( survey I, need at least 50% concentration and you have 1 out 4 chances, survey IV (or Master Artisan) you need 10% at least and you have 100% success.
This way sampling will be used the way it was intended, collecting samples of resources to see their value, and when you find a good one, you have to put harvesters to get a fair amount.
The main disadvantage I see (but you guys will find others I'm sure) is that the low level harvester is not really 'roleplay', but the current status of sampling isn't neither.
Change the way sampling is working, whatever is the level you should only be able to get 1 resource at a time, say every 30s as today.
and
survey IV (or Master Artisan) you need 10% at least and you have 100% success.
Hmm... 24 hours * 60 minutes * 2 resource per minute (1 each 30 seconds) = 2,880 and that on a 10% spot.
That's772 resourcesmore then a Heavy Harvester would pull in on a 10% spot and exactly the same as a personal harvester wpuld gain on a (theoretical) 100% spot.
Conclusion: Suggestion won't make people stop afk-macro-harvesting 24/7
Goff McMerrii
Miner
Greetings,
I am in favor of macro - sampling. To tell you where I come from : I maxed out the scout skills and artisan survey beforeI started macro sampling. My stated goal in the game is to find as much specials in the game as possible (by specials I mean such things as Fort Tusken or The Massassi Temple). Not a lot of ways to make money.
So ... I let my character do macro sampling when I sleep. 660 units per hour on a good site. ThenI drop it off at the bazaar. Get some money ... enough to pay for the next DX2 and some food and medicine. Add hides/bone/meat I gathered.
Then I am off again into the wilderness running around, looking for specials and occasionally fighting.
Macro Sampling gives me the freedom to actively play and find INTERESTING stuff when I am awake and do the ultra-boring stuff to earn money while I sleep. To interact with players and not having to run off to check me harvesters.
Novarider Tam (Naritus)
Erillion wrote:
Greetings,
I am in favor of macro - sampling. To tell you where I come from : I maxed out the scout skills and artisan survey beforeI started macro sampling. My stated goal in the game is to find as much specials in the game as possible (by specials I mean such things as Fort Tusken or The Massassi Temple). Not a lot of ways to make money.
So ... I let my character do macro sampling when I sleep. 660 units per hour on a good site. ThenI drop it off at the bazaar. Get some money ... enough to pay for the next DX2 and some food and medicine. Add hides/bone/meat I gathered.
Then I am off again into the wilderness running around, looking for specials and occasionally fighting.
Macro Sampling gives me the freedom to actively play and find INTERESTING stuff when I am awake and do the ultra-boring stuff to earn money while I sleep. To interact with players and not having to run off to check me harvesters.
Novarider Tam (Naritus)
What I get from this post is you're saying, I should be able to get free money for not doing anything. You think there's no ways for a scout to make money? You obviously haven't tried very hard. But hey, why should you actually have to earn anything in this game, it's much more fun to get all the best equipment without actually doing anything to earn it right?
Erillion wrote:
Greetings,
I am in favor of macro - sampling. To tell you where I come from : I maxed out the scout skills and artisan survey beforeI started macro sampling. My stated goal in the game is to find as much specials in the game as possible (by specials I mean such things as Fort Tusken or The Massassi Temple). Not a lot of ways to make money.
So ... I let my character do macro sampling when I sleep. 660 units per hour on a good site. ThenI drop it off at the bazaar. Get some money ... enough to pay for the next DX2 and some food and medicine. Add hides/bone/meat I gathered.
Then I am off again into the wilderness running around, looking for specials and occasionally fighting.
Macro Sampling gives me the freedom to actively play and find INTERESTING stuff when I am awake and do the ultra-boring stuff to earn money while I sleep. To interact with players and not having to run off to check me harvesters.
Novarider Tam (Naritus)
If you want to use resources as a reliable income, get a harvester. It's how the game was meant to be played. If you want to finance a combat profession without putting in the work of being an artisan/miner, then do some destroy missions.
I was going to agree that sampling is boring (which it is), but it's not meant to be exciting. After the initial grind up the sampling ladder, you should be using harvesting for any major resource collection. Harvesters don't get bored 
I envisioned a job system where by when you logged off your character would "go to work" and you would recieve income. Then when you played your character would leave work and go adventuring.
Macro afk mining is as close to that as I can get. Now it doesn't matter, I have built myself up to 30-some heavy harvesters (4 fusions
) and I don't need to macro mine anymore.Btw I believe they increased the mining timer to 45s, and the special mining events will reduce your output by 5-10% or more if you're macroing.
Grats Bianca on your new position!
I appreciate good discussion and people thatknow that at times you have to agree todisagree. It sounds like you'll make a fine representative.
On the macroing issue: I can't see that macro sampling is an economy breaker or anything that should be changed. That guywill get maybe 2k units on a great spot in myestimation. So, considering the bazaar prices I've been looking at that's maybe 10-12k max. Does that really hurt the artisan class in some way? No. Or any other class for that matter? No, again. And how many people really do that? I'd suggest not that many in reality.
Lets fix some of the really annoying things like the pain in the arse of trying to figure out what number a datapad schematic is when the correct count gets you the wrong schematic. *ok well this probably only bothers me, but how bout just adding the info on the window please.*
T'kara
I don't think this topic was intended to be a debate on AFK-macroing, folks.
True, but who can resist an invitation like that?
--Flatfingers
Grats Bianca, I know that things will get done/answered with you as our delegate. Good luck.
Al' Hardy
Congratulations on being selected, Bianca, and thanks for a great introductory message. Letting people know how you look at things right off the bat is an excellent way to begin a service/representation role. (I'd actually argue that there IS some leadership involved, but that's another message.)
Now, since you brought 'em up (and everyone else is jumping on it, too )...
1. I too am opposed to AFK macro'ing of any type. The only valid argument anyone has offered for why they should be allowed to do things in the game without actually playing the game is "then why did the developers put commands in the game that macros can use?" It's a good question -- I can't figure out why they did that, either.
2. I think bug fixes and balancing can be done simultaneously in many cases, but that may be a case of my definition of "bug" differing from yours. I don't tend to think of a broken DE or Merchant ability as a "bug"; to me that's more of a conceptual failure. A bug iswhen, just asI near my harvester, a POI pops up nearby, levels the landscape under my harvester, and leaves it floating in mid-air where I can't collect my resources or even pay maintenance on the darn thing.
These are sufficiently different kinds of problems that there should be different people working on them both at the same time.
3. Artisans (crafters, medics and entertainers in general, I would say)absolutely need to be more a part of the GCW. I've been making a point of saying this at every opportunity, and I'll continue to do so as long as is necessary.
Again, welcome to your new responsibilities, and thank you for agreeing to take them on. Please let us know what we can do to help you.
--Flatfingers