Artisan Archive
Thread: What to Do to Make Artisans Viable in this Combat-centric Game
This is a terrible idea. Adding 50 points would only make combat classes better, and make people self-sufficient, which is completely opposite to the point of this game. People need to be more dependent on each other, not less.
If you actually think that this game is about Combat, then be a combat character. Plenty of crafters make a good living and have fun creating items. Crafters are not supposed to fight! If you want resources that require scouting and such, then you need to have a scout friend that can provide you with materials, notmoan because you can't do everything by yourself.
You don't have to purchase harvesters to make money. The problem is, people are way to greedy. You don't buy a factory or a massive harvester when you don't have the money to support it or a customer base. Dell computers started out of a dorm room and worked its way up. This is the same way, you don't have to have large facilities right off the bat. You never need to fight as a crafter.
Some people don't see the appeal in fighting: Sorta annoying to see a rabbit kick your ass when you have a pistol. It's also annoying to hear about all the exploit stories in PVP, and how much better certain fighting classes are than others.
If you don't like crafting, that's fine, but don't beg for more points so that you can do both, that ruins the point of the game and ruins business for the ones that actually enjoy playing as crafters.
I'm sorry, there is almost nothing in your post that I agree with.
Count me as another who disagrees. There's no way you should be able to maintain 4 starter professions, Master Artisan and Master DE at one time. Self sufficiency is not the name of this game. Make some friends and surrender some of the basic skills to progress. You realize that just having novice medic is, what, 12 points? Or is it 15, I don't remember...but at any rate, surrender that and just rely on people specializing in the medic profession for healing. That's the point of 'multiplayer'. Otherwise, why not just play a 1-player game where you can be master-of-all-trades.
I think one of the real issues can be summed up like this: Combat classes are incredibly powerful in many ways and could easily defeat most crafters in combat. This is as it should be, and basically makes sense. But on the other hand, crafters should be able to have the same level ofpower economically. Someone who is a master elite-class crafter in one ortwo classesshould be as formidible in the game's economy as a master rifleman or bounty hunter is in combat. We should be quite a force in the game, and we should command respect once we reach that kind of level.
If you measure thepower of a character by how much overall capacity one has in the game (not just combat, but all-around) even a halfway decent pistoleer, carbineer, or rifleman is way more powerful than a master architect, merchant,or droid engineer. Weapon and armorsmiths are slightly better because the combat classes depend on them so much, but even then, nearly all finance in the game comes from fighters doing missions. The artisan missions are a start, but there needs to be something like the ability to build a large, complex product and sell it to npc's for large amounts of money, possibly even grouping together to find the resources and craft the items to accomplish this.
The combat classes should be able to bring in enough income to purchase goods from crafters, but we should not be completely reliant on them. I am not saying that combat classes should be poor, but they should not bewealthier or even as wealthy as someone who has dedicated him or herself to a profession designed tomakegoods and, in turn,money. As it stands, we do not control the economy, and we are certainly not formidible in any way.
The same things apply to medics, entertainers, and other professions coming along, such as politician.
jlbrownos wrote:The artisan missions are a start, but there needs to be something like the ability to build a large, complex product and sell it to npc's for large amounts of money, possibly even grouping together to find the resources and craft the items to accomplish this.
/agree
Most deffinately we need 2-4k artisan missions. Selling to players should bring in greater proffit, but it should be possible to make up a lack in funds by doing some missions.
I think this is a great idea! In fact I was just thinking, that now they have that new who-controls-what-dungeons thing for the GCW...why not have some economy based goals, i.e. whichever side has more sales in a given month gets some kind of economy bonus the next month--reduced bazaar/harvester cost or something like that. I haven't really put that much thought into it yet, just brainstorming. They could also do it for dancers, whichever side heals more BF in a month gets a healing bonus the next month or something. Might be tough to code, but it would be cool. Also it's a great idea to have crafters able to do NPC stuff--Han Solo needs you to make a blaster but he needs it crafted from a certain material only found in one place, Jabba contracts you to make this rare type of food that requires Yavinian Shellfish...stuff like that would be cool.
Mack_Dorgeans wrote:
Some constant (not monthly story-based) way for non-combatants to affect the GCW would help, as would ways to interact with major NPCs. Collecting items from quests is all well and good, but until schematics and components are the main rewards, requiring the fighters to find an expert builder of a given type to assemble them, then there is no reason not to be a combat class rather than a builder/support class.
The same things apply to medics, entertainers, and other professions coming along, such as politician.
I have one point to spend right now.
My skills are:
Master Artisan (77 points)
Exploration IV,Hunting IV, Trapping II, Survival I (50 points)
Pistol IV, Ranged Support IV (43 points)
First Aid II (20 points)
Creature Handler 2-2-1-1 (34 points)
Pistoleer 0-4-0-1 (25 points)
I do just fine. I can make my own Bone armor, Repair kits, slotted clothing, power-ups, and food/drink. I can also stop my own bleeding and heal myself with (purchased) stim-Bs. My 9k+ HAMCH pet and my Pistol Accuracy While Moving bonuses make me pretty leet, IMO.
I could give up Master Artisan and Business IV and still keep all my Artisan Experiment and Assembly points and put those 10 into Pistoleer to become even leeter. The reason I choose to remain a Master Artisan is because I'm Human, and Human racial bonuses indicate that Artisan is the profession for that race. I'm palnning to give up Trapping I&II as well as Survival I when I get enough combat xp to move up some more in the Pistol Special Abilities tree.
If I had an extra 50 points, it would all go into CH and Pistoleer.
Perhaps a 10K-credit limit would help. Some decent guns could fit under this limit, as could most armor pieces, small houses, medium harvesters, etc. Then artisans could jettison Business skills and still make ends meet by using a combination of the bazaar and merchants.
Right now I have novice merchant and two vendors (within a few hundred meters of each other, my house and PA hall). I make MUCH more money from bazaar sales of powerups and crates of powerups than I do on vendor sales of the same items SIGNIFICANTLY CHEAPER and in greater quantity and variety. Every powerup I sell on the bazaar or my vendors has my vendor waypoints and says TWICE that prices are better at the vendors. Still, most people (not all -- I do make some vendor sales) would rather spend more than walk 1.6-1.9km into the desert between Espa and Entha. I understand I'm taking a hit due to location and not spreading out, but hopefully someday vehicles and player town shuttleports (if they are ever implemented) will bring higher traffic.
However, as it stands now, since I cannot make the more elite items, I would be better off ditching business altogether and having other merchant and artisan PA members sell some of my stuff for me for a piece of the profit. I am glad to help further the merchant cause, but the problem I see here is there is no real incentive for me to have business skills unless I want to be a merchant or master artisan (I'm both currently, but they will be the first things to go when the limit hits). Perhaps the higher bazaar limit could be connected with business and merchant skills so those still have a purpose.
Last night I was talking with 3 players in my PA -- 2 master tailors and a master merchant -- and they all had the same basic problem: they were bored and/or frustrated with bugs and lack of content.
I know two of those players (the merchant and one tailor) have made large amounts of credits, though the merchant player often has to spend most of their bankroll to resupply. The other tailor recently mastered, but at 88K in the bank is not exactly facing bankruptcy, either. However, they probably would be very close to it but for a couple trips to Endor in hunting parties.
The merchant problems are well known, and equally well ignored or marginalized by the powers-that-be. I suspect this may be partially due to the "priority" system for fixes, which allows big problems to push off lesser ones indefinitely. On the other hand, I can't see how an entire profession being nearly useless and broken can be considered less of an issue than many others. Merchants can't really do a whole lot more than business IV artisans right now other than take advantage of the extremely low NPC vendor maintenance costs (which you only need to be a novice to use) and put your vendors on the map or make them speak -- both of which have issues, as well. Advertising just doesn't get to most of the potential customers, so you are pretty much just as effective with word-of-mouth and novice merchant as with master. Perhaps a system of ad space on the bazaar or on city billboards would be useful, but whatever else is done, the merchant class can't be ignored.
Aside from the just-plain-broken frustrations, though, lack of content is a major complaint. Once these players finish grinding or filling orders to get to master in their chosen profession, all they can do is either drop skills and learn different trades or concentrate on learning combat skills. Again, there is no incentive to be a builder or service professional, aside from perhaps medics who can directly support fighters in battle. If content missions required or at least took into account building and support skills, and rewarded them, there would be much more incentive to play those professions. Rewards need to be more than monetary, too. If an artisan can find an extremely rare schematic that allows them to be one of only a couple of players to be able to build a high-demand item until the schematic runs out, that could be one way to have skill-based rewards. HOWEVER, such schematics would have to require certain skills to use, otherwise any player with a factory could just as easily crank the items out. Again, there would be no incentive not to be a fighter.
Missions with puzzles or problem-solving that require different skills would also go a long way to improve the game experience for non-combatants.
As it is right now, the game just becomes a boring grind, one way or another, once non-combat professionals max out their skills in their chosen fields. This, I think, should be considered a HIGH-PRIORITY issue, not an amalgam of scores of smaller issues. Everybody's been focusing on combat balance, GCW issues, pets, etc., but unless these fundamental problems are dealt with soon, we'll see fewer and fewer support classes playing, and more and more fighters.
What's wrong with that? Well, as one person put it, if they wanted to just be a fighter, they'd go back to EverQuest. Really, the great potential of this game is that it DOES have a wide variety of profession paths. Combat in this game is not as cool or engaging as is some other games out there, so if the non-combat side is neglected, what future does the game really have?
"Combat in this game is not as cool or engaging as --IN-- some other games out there, so if the non-combat side is neglected, what future does the game really have?"
Yep, all the people who grinded to Master already are complaining about lack of content. Nothing new there. If you don't want to wait around for upcoming patches, and interacting with the community isn't enough for you, well there's not much left to be said.