Artisan Archive

Mariki, I think you're right that powerups are less useful than pre-CU (and probably don't sell as well now, which hurts Artisans). But I see the problem a little differently,so I'dlike to suggest a different solution.

There's a fairly well-known concept in game design that says that for every benefit, there needs to be a cost. If you don't design features with this kind of balance, ifplayers caneffectively get something for nothing,then all your game's players will do that and you'll wind up witha cookie-cutter game.

That's not necessarily a problem in single-player games, but it's bad news for multiplayer games. You wind up with templating and a game that's less rich than it should be because everybody's doing the same thing.

So I think the change the developers madeto powerups-- imposing a cost to every gain --is exactly the right thing to have done.

BUT... the developers went beyond this, and also imposed a high decay cost on using powerups. Unless you're able to afford to apply anADK to every weapon you use (and not everyone can do this), using a powerup now carries too high a price. Instead of a benefit plus a cost, usingpowerups now means a benefit plus a cost plus a cost. And that's not a good balance; it makes using powerups too expensive for the benefits they provide.

So my suggestion is: keep the powerup effects and the experimentation on them, but ditch the decay cost. We'll wind up with a product that sells well because it's useful, but requires/allows players to choose which kind of product is most useful to them because there's still a cost to every benefit.

Everybody wins.

--Flatfingers

Being a 14 point artisan, I sell more power ups today than I ever did before CU. I make them +34%ish damage, and +9%ish speed... but my most popular is +28%ish damage, +4%ish speed...

You can throw out all of your old pre-CU stock of power ups cause they converted very badly, and the stats on the crates don't match the actual stats on the power up.

---

Cobacca1 wrote:

You can throw out all of your old pre-CU stock of power ups cause they converted very badly, and the stats on the crates don't match the actual stats on the power up.

---

Message Edited by xDiggerx on 06-24-2005 09:34 AM

---

EdOWar wrote:

---

La-grange wrote:

Now with all 10 points given to damage I get up to 36% for a bonus. Sounds good right? Well it isn't with +16% to speed. DPS with that one either drops or doesn't change at all. Why even allow for the creation of that crap. Funny thing is that the pup's created before the push of the CU converted to that. Making them completely worthless. Like so much of everything else in the game.

---

DPS isn't everything it's made out to be. DPS is a function of damage and speed. But a CL 80 combat toon probably has speed mods up the wahzoo, so they only really care about max damage and SAC. So for them, a pup that adds +36% max damage is probably pretty useful, as the speed penalty will be fairly minor for them.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

I partially agree with that statement. The number itself doesn't mean much to me. However it does serve as a benchmark on how devestating the weapon could be.

But with that same pup used by my other toon when he was a MBH/Mcarbineer with force mods and skill tapes, there was a noticeable drop in speed. Sure I hit harder but less often. So yes the speed mod does still count. In that case my attack speed as recorded in my combat log dropped a full sec between attacks.

As a winner of Garva's Home Show, I felt duty-bound to post here since it seems nearly every other winner is present and accounted for in this thread. I guess the old adage is true: Artisans do it better.

As for powerups...I sell a TON of them. More than any other product, and my profit margin on them is FAR in excess of any other product I have ever carried. Right now I am averaging 600k+ a week in pup sales. LOL. Anyone who has figured out how the new combat system really works knows that DPS is notthe best indicator to actual performance of a weapon, and therefore they know that powerups are indeed very useful. My biggest sellers are speed, damage, and SAC pups. Although the BH community has been very keen on the accuracy pups as well. I think they find they are missing far too often against Defenders, and are trying to compensate.

Personally I use damage and SAC pups the most. It depends on which weapon I am using, as well as what type of opponent I am facing. Speed pups are worthless to me because of my speed attachments, but they are very useful to others. I think many people still buy speed pups because it makes their DPS rating on their weapon look really high, so they think, "Hey...this must be the best pup! That damage pup didnt change my DPS at all!". LOL. Eventually they figure it out, or they die very quickly in PvP. Dont get me wrong, certain professions can really benefit from speed pups. Anyone without speed attachments, or with weapons that have a really slow speed, or who are grinding out rifles or carbines from scratch....speed pups might be the ticket. But if the SAC on their weapon is normal to high, theyrun the risk of burningout of action long before their opponent and losing very quickly. Slowly, most people switch away from speed pups. As a Lvl 80 template you rarely need a lot more speed unless you have crappy weapons. That has been my finding anyway, and it matches the trend that I see in my customers purchasing habits.

Hope this helps, and hello to all the other Home Show winners.

This is an absolutely wonderful thread. I had plenty of reservations post-CU about PUPs. I made the highest quality PUPs and sold in mass quantities pre-CU. I literally had 1000's of PUPs on my vendors when the CU occurred and they all converted to crap. I was severely dissappointed. I lost a lot of money on those

However, like many people have stated here. There are definitely many benefits to the new PUPs, crafting options, no guess work, etc. I have spent countless hours searching for artisan exp tapes to become a 14pt artisan. I don't have the millions that others have to spend. I am still only a 13 pt, but I can make some good ones. I also don't have the patience to sit around making schems with 100% amazing success. But with my limited ability and patience, I am able to make very good PUPs and they are actually in HIGH demand. Now that the whole DPS debate is about over, most people want SAC PUPs.

Hope this helps. And good luck!

I barely sell any melee pups, but the ranged ones fly off the vendor .... For me I make 2 types of each, I max effectiveness on one and efficiency on th other and keep SAC, Speed and Dmg in stock ... keeping that in mind popularity is as follows:

(Average Effective powerup is between +28 to 33 and - 8 to 17 and Efficiency runs from + 20 to 23 and - 1 to 3)

1. Effective SAC
2. Effective Dmg
3. Effective Speed
4. Efficiency Dmg
5. Efficiency Speed
6. Efficiency SAC

As has been said already, Powerups sell very well and I can average600k per week selling them depending on server conditions that week ... each week varies The problem is such, I have a 14 point artisan using good resources and getting double amazing successes is very very annoying and time consuming.... (though, somtimes i can do it in less than 10 mins .... pffft )

Long story short, just emphasizing what's already been said, the cu improved powerup sales substantially for me, not the other way around

Message Edited by Nema0879 on 06-30-2005 02:40 AM