Artisan Archive

Folks, a lot of you really have the wrong impression about being an Artisan, or any sort of Elite crafting profession.

A) Yes, it is hard. It is SUPPOSED to be hard. You are not going to craft 3 CDEF Pistols and suddenly be a Novice Weaponsmith. The reason why the gap from Artisan to any of the real crafting professions is so big (21K XP for Weaponsmith) is because WE, the folks in the Elite Professions who worked hard to get there, don't want 8 million of YOU picking up the same profession.

B) If you feel discouraged, then realize that you're feeling correctly. You are discouraged from pursuing a crafting profession. Crafting is only for those dedicated individuals who put in the time and effort and who will later on be able to dominate the galactic market. We don't need or want every other "casual" player picking up Architect in a few days and providing more competition.

C) This is a game. Games have winners. The winners are the ones who work hardest, who think best, who achieve the most. Don't complain that certain goals are unattainable to you. They are not meant to be attained by someone LIKE you. If you cannot put in the same effort and dedication as those ahead of you, you do NOT deserve to be in the same league, so please, don't complain when you aren't.

D) Crafting requires one to have a strong infrastructure (Harvesters, etc.) It requires one to be dedicated to advancing. You will not advance "by accident", as you do in other professions. If you want to advance "by accident", go be a Marksman, join up Gnort-killing groups, and get your XP the easy way. Only through dedication and hard work will you make it as a crafter.

E) Crafting, beleive it or not, is much HARDER than any other set of professions in the game. It is NOT meant to be easy. You casual players who think that you'll be able to pick up Artisan and dilly-dally along, smelling the fauna, and not get down to grinding, setting up a hardcore, well-maintained infrastructure, advertising, selling, etc., are going to be in for a real surprise when those of us who are dedicated will swallow you whole in the in-game marketplace. There is no room at the top for those not willing to put in the true effort.

Don't think for a second that this is meant to actually slander or discourage any of you from being an Artisan. Far from it...I'm telling you what it takes to be a crafter...no Vaseline. That's all.

WOW! Cold blooded! But . . . very true. Most of the complaints I see about crafting is "it's too hard". Well, when you make me think about it . . . GOOD! More people are "crafters" in this game then in any other. The galaxy really does NOT need 2 weaponsmiths PER marksman! That's a wee bit on the insane side.

I know that I'VE been putting a LOT of time into maintaining harvesters, and SOON it will all pay off. Then I can start putting LONG hours into grinding the best mods in the galaxy and selling them at ripe prices.

Then, after a month of constant work . . . I'll get to move onto my REAL job . . . whatever that may be.

That's the point, though...stubborn people like you should reap the rewards, while folks who are piddling away should get exactly what they're doing...piddle.

Personally, I have no compassion for people who whine about advancing in a crafting profession being too hard. Don't they realize that if it was easy, everybody would do it?

I come from Everquest...crafting there is a joke. The only bottle-neck to crafting in Everquest is your level. If you're high enough level to farm the higher level components, you can skill up your craft indefinitely with absolutely no problem. No skill points to worry about, no loss of fighting power, etc. A level 60 Anything in Everquest can Grandmaster every crafting profession. This causes a huge amount of people able to craft just about anything, which makes Everquest's economy a complete and utter joke. You basically cannot be a new player interested in crafting in Everquest...it won't work. There are already 20-30 GrandMaster Tailors, Blacksmiths, etc. on the server before you, and you may get to sell 1 pathetic item every 2 weeks.

SWG gives you the ability to actually BE a crafter. You can run Delivery missions for start-up capital, you can maintain a set of Harvesters for resources, you can EARN XP FOR CRAFTING, the items you make ARE THE BEST IN THE GAME (so far, at least)..and yet there are complaints? Sorry, but being able to be a Master Weaponsmith without having to kill a single mob has to have some sort of down-side to prevent everyone from doing it.

some good points, but it that doesn't mean a "casual" player can't be a crafter or even a really good crafter.

I'll be blunt get over yourself. Just because someone else doesn't get to master whatever in under 2 weeks doesn't mean they are or will be a failure. Less time in game means it will take longer, so MORE not less dedication is needed. You think spending a large part of someones free time for several months is not "dedicated" enough. What dedermines if you can "make it" as a crafter or not has more to do with HOW you play than WHEN you play. Yes, when is a factor but only one of several and not the major factor either. Reasons A, B and E don't exclude casuals as long as the player is dedicated and willing to put in the necessary work.

But, reasons C and D a just ignorant. You obviously don't know what you are talking about when you talk about "casual" player. That is a very broad term including anyone who doesn't spend all their time in-game. You assumptions are wrong and nearly insulting. I sepecially like C where you might as well have said I'm great and you aren't. Wow how mature.

And I don't mean to insult you either, I'm just giving it to you straight....no vaseline.

Actually, I think the 'casual player' will gain more xp/hour played than any grinder out there.

When you add in harvesters working offline, factories, and UXP. Grinding takes more effort/xp than playing.

When you take into account that a casual player is defined as someone who plays less than 4 hours a day (by the devs, not my definintion). Of course it will take them 'longer' to level than someone who's playing 8-12 a day. But their timeused will be more efficient (and therefore faster), and I'd be willing to bet that Holo's metrics would prove the point.

Bianca Minola

Yes, I agree with Bianca. I'm a casual player too. I play 2-4 hours per night. I have a 2nd char on another server that's a brawler which I sometimes play as well. Right now my main, "Jukskei" is close to Eng IV, and has some pretty decent scout and marksman skills. Remember "casual player" does not mean "not dedicated player."I have never grinded unless you think destroying low quality bone armor segments (my min value for using those are 296) is grinding.

So I will disagree, casual players CAN be crafters and make a good living and MOST important have fun. I don't expect to be a Weaponsmith next week or maybe not even next month but I'm sure getting much more satisfaction out of the journey there.

OOOOOhh i see so i guess i'm gonna have to quit BOTH my jobs now, because from the way i'm reading your post it seems i have to have no life. So i just called both my bosses and told them im not comming into work today, my excuse was that i'm working on becoming a Master Armorsmith in this new computer game that i started playing, they were both very understanding, in fact they were so happy for me they burst out in laughter when i told them what i was doing!! So thanks for giving this helpful advice, now i have no interferance with my REAL job, SWG........................

......................... GET REAL! Anyone and everyone can do VERY well in this game and whoever takes advice from selfish, glory-hogs who delight in seeing others fail, is their own fault.

Haha. I will try not to be insulting back, but when you say, "They are not meant to be attained by someone LIKE you," (and the rest of reason "C"), you sound almost as if you think you are better than us casual crafters in some way.

Even though you're the one spending a good portion of your life achieving things in a *GAME*.

I choose to be a casual player (8-10 hours a week), because I also like to devote lots of time to achieving and producing things *in real life*. I spend more time improving my own life than I spend improving the life of a character in a game.

I understand the reality that my character will not advance as quickly as yours. That's all a part of choosing to have a life outside of the game. Therefore, I shant ever complain about my character advancing more slowly than yours. That's totally fair. I'm playing the game not to be the best crafter in the Galaxy, but to have fun now and then.

I do believe, however, that we do have the right to complain about anything that makes it impossible to do certain things as a casual player *at any speed*. I haven't gotten that far, but I suspect that once I get a harvester, it's going to be difficult to keep it. At all. Because of maintanence fees.

I think I ought to be able to have a harvester, not have it disappear, just to have it produce less, or "pause", or break and need some extra repairs,if I'm not there to babysit it every week, devoting hours and hours just to earn the creds to maintain it. I can understand it stopping production, but I don't think I'm going to like the fact that it will simply break beyond all repair. That kind of thing will make casual crafting nearly *impossible*, rather than *slower*, which are two totally different things.

But that time has not yet come, so I will reserve complaint until then. I was just using that as an example.

JamGrrl (Xove in game, we've met.)

Oh, please....

Get over yourself Dtox, or at least attempt to be somewhat informative. SWG like most mmorpg's requires little skill, and crafting requires none at all other then2 minutes to learn how to tell which material is optimum for which schematic.

Time is the only factor in becoming an elite artisan, nothing more nothing less. It might take longer for the casual player to accrue the time.

For the rest of people learning to be an artisan, enjoy the game; this is not an X-box game there is no winning or losing (apparently just frustrated powergamers upset that they are losing their monopoly in Architecture so soon )

I get a few hours in most evening so I classify myself as a casual player. Here's a few comments for other's like myself as a kinda support group.

1) If this is your first on-line role playing game, understand that these games are designed for play over a long period of time. When I say long I mean it. I played Everquest when it start for over a year. As a casual player I only made level 40 out of 50 (at that time it was 50 max) in that time. I then switched to Dark Age of Camelot after it came out (got mega burned on corpse decay in EQ). I was over a year in that game to get to level 50 (max). You simply have to stop being frustrated with time, PERIOD. In other MMORPG's I've played, I watched the power players speed past me time and time again. I don't get excited about it. Don't let that happen to you. Compared to other MMORPG's I've played I am ahead of schedule. Frankly I am a bit surprised I am making headway as fast as I am. In some respects, they may have overpaced the game.

2) If you are not into grinding, DON'T. I guarantee that some of you that are grinding and HATE it, that you are going to wake up one day and just stop playing the game. Find the parts of the game you enjoy and play them. If you don't you will never get off the grinding wheel. There are always going to be players that are ahead of you and will never be able to grind enough stuff to catch up.

3) I made a artisan, scout, marksman, medic . I made it to novice weaponsmith and am dom IV and bus IV away from master artisan. Diversify your character a bit so you can experience other parts of the game. Get out there and get in the galactic fray! Find some rebel missions or imperial mission or whatever. Yeah, you might get a further behind the power crafters, but no biggie. Have some in game fun.

4) Focus on quality crafting. I rarely grind. I simply hate it and can't do it. A few times I've grabbed my last 500 exp's from a pile of muzzles but for the most part I don't. I like to experiment with weapons, armor, crafting devices etc. to make them better. I putter around and get different metals and petros,light up a few paralopes along theway,examine different resources, use different combinations and find that the exp just shows up. I only try to sell the very best of what I make.When I focus on quality, I have fun, enjoy the game, and I don't get frustrated.

5) I believe there are more subtleties to this game then most crafters still know. Some are trying to tell you that you just get the best conductivity and overall quality metal (if that's what goes into the weapon) and Bingo, you've got it. That's part of it, but it's not all of it. If you muzzle your way through engineering III or IV or whatever, you will miss the point of it. To learn the craft. This isapparent to me now that I am a novice weaponssmith. That gives us the ability to make the D-18. We all only have one experimentation point to do it. With only one experimentation point, I make D-18's that are 10-15 damage points better than most of what I see on the bazaar. Matter of fact, on my planet I don't see any D-18's made as high as I can make them, granted they don't sell much. My point is most of the crafters thatgrind through couldn't make a decent weapon to save themself from a pack of scavenger rats.

6) Do the harvestor thing. I've macro sampled and harvested. Fact is I macroed through most of the artisan tree. I finally gave in and put up a few harvestors. What a relief! Now I can play the game more. If you are still in the artisan tree, take an evening or two and run some missions. Get your bank roll up to the 20,000 credits. You will have to marksman train to get decent weapon damage delivery. My choice was the carbine. If you want to do delivery mission, go for it. I make more credits doing traditional missions. Remember, certain animals are more susceptible to certain attacks. For example, paralopes and durni's on my planet are very susceptible to leg shot (carbine). I only take those missions. I can power through 4-6 in an hour and that nets me 6-9,000 credits.

7) Plan your harvestor power first. I put up my first harvestor and didn't plan for the power. Mistake! My power of choice is nuclear. Just my preference. Some like wind. The other advantage the harvestor has for the casual gamer is that it allows you to bank some resources for the mineral dry spells that occur. I bank half of what I harvest for when minerals run out.

8) Don't get in too deep on harvestors. I find that as a casual gamer, two is realistic. I mine a metal and petro. That'll be plenty. As a casual gamer, however, choose your harvestor sites carefully. I try to pick harvestor sites where a good metal overlaps with a gem and an ore. As time goes on you will need more types of resources to make things. By overlapping resources, I can use one harvestor to get multiple resources by changing it back and forth. About every third or forth evening I have to run more missions to stay ahead on credits.

9) Accept the fact that you are going to lose money on your sales. I do sell things. For me it is only the very best of what I make. I would say that with the ongoing crafting nerfs I get about one high quality product for about every 4-5 I try to manufacture. I simply can't sell things for what I put into them. That's ok. I like running the missions. You'll find that after you run 4-6 missions you want to "get back to crafting". That's what'll keep you from getting burned out on the grind.

10) Have fun! Have fun! Have fun! Man, I read so many posts about people crabbing and whining about this and that. WHY

If the casual crafter takes the time to research and obtain the best resources for the item he is building he will be a better (and probably more successful) crafter than any grinder.

The fact that his advancement is potentially slower is meaningless - get over the powerlevelling concept, it will only lead to unhappiness and boredom in SWG

OOPS, hit the enter key.

10) I don't get it. If there are people that are being made so miserable playing, why do it. I play MMORPG's for the immersion, distraction and community with other players.

So, there are my 10 tips for the casual gamer. Hope that helps those of you that are getting frustrated. Last but not least, if you have questions, ask for help on this forum. For casual players, time is also a commodity. Don't waste it spinning your wheels. Once guilds start showing up, try to join one. They add to the experience.