Artisan Archive

Insanity... table for one!

Artisans get the advantage of KNOWING what is on the spot of property BEFORE they waste 2k on placing and pulling a harvester.

Plus they can roam and find the best concentration of ores.

PLUS they can even sample it before they decide that 23-OQ iron is crap.

The prices on some resources is already high enough... Artisans monopolizing harvesters will just make that SKYROCKET!

Build your profession up... don't destroy others doing it. Give yourself a mining bonus or something.

Incase those that miss the first 2 times. THIS THREAD WAS POSTED BY MISTAKE. LET IT DIE.

Doing something like this would probably send the (already high) costs of raw materials through the roof. Even as a Master Artisan/Merchant/Armorsmith, I have to buy about 90% of what I use in raw materials from people who do only that. What they usually do, from what I've seen, is have people place harvesters at locations they identify. That way they can get more raw materials and someone else gets some cash. It's all perfectly within the realm of a logical economy.

The reason harvested resources cost so much is not because of greed, although everyone wants to make as much as they can, it's simply market pressures- supply vs demand. The higher the demand, the higher the cost. The lower the supply, the higher the cost.

Restricting harvester placement to Artisans would make for very bad business. I doubt I could make even 25% of the amount of items I make now if something like this were instituted.

After a bit more thought on a personally touchy topic, I'll conceed that maybe it should be scaled in some fashion, instead of totally removed for all non-artisans. Something like a BER cap or harvestor size limitation, would probably work.

Bu then that brings me back to comparison withthe other professions. Should everyone have the ablity to /harvest, but only scouts can /examine to see what is on the creature and get a bonus to /harvest. Or to put in another way, should I be able to use a laser rifle or sprayspray stick, just with no specials if I don't have marksman. Should all characters be able to /healdamage, but medics get a bonus.

Notice I didn't say use a flamethrower or /setperform, since those are elite profession abilitiesand are beyond the scope of thise discussion.

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Scoooter wrote:

You need to look at why things are happening before you unilaterally decide that you must now control an ability that everyone is given just by being in the game.

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CraftAddict wrote:

If I need a house, I have to buy one made by an architect.

If I need wounds healed, I go to a entertain or medic profession.

I need a weapon, most likely, I'll get one from a weaponsmith.

If I need said weapon sliced, I have to talk to a smuggler.

...etc.

We see the pattern, interdependancy. Professions in this game were not meant to be able to do it all.

That said, where does this "if that's so, then only architects should be able to use houses" mentality come from.

The thing is, every profession, gameplay/bug issues aside, is given some sort of role in the galaxy. Each get multiple essential skills that are need from time to time from other professions. Besides vehicles, which REQUIRES master, we have a whole skill tree devoted to mining. Which, it seems everyone can do, with more or less some difficulty. Where's the essential skill in that?

I don't know about you, but it seems no matter how many medics show me to the ed center, without novice medic, I still can't heal wounds. I can buy a scout blaster, but for some strange reason, witout novice marksman, I can't use it.

Actually, you can- just not well. That's actually somewhat analagous to the situation with people placing harvesters without the surveying tree.

Please do be mindful with your opinions before screaming about why your has to have a skill that belongs in another. Please people, we need something more constructive than crying "greed" everytime this topic is discussed.

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Nobody requires your approval to have an opinion, or to express it. You are free to agree or disagree, but it's pretty rude to tell people to be mindful of their opinions. Your feeling seems to be that an opinion that you have rejected is not constructive- I'm afraid that's not your judgement to make. You don't have to agree with anyone, but your agreement or lack thereof doesn't remotely invalidate anyone else's opinions.

There's a simple economic reason why anyone should be able to place a harvestor of any size...reducing the number of resource suppliers will increase the price of resources. This in turn increases the prices of finished goods, and makes life even harder for starting characters and non-combat crafting players. It also would tend to inflate prices for all goods and services (including looted items, like holos/krayt tissues/new loot schems/etc.), not just crafted goods. The economy is screwy enough; cutting the number of resource sellers in half (or more) would drive prices through the roof.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

I honestly don't know how any artisan would have time to craft if only artisans could handle resources.... they would quickly be bombarded with tells and requests to "harvest this" and "harvest that".

Plain and simple fact is that there are just too many resources out there, and too many classes that use those resources. Even with decent medical forage skill (as you stated in your post), how do you expect a medic to forage enough resources to make several crates of stims? Sit there for days? That's not very practical.

You could really argue all over the place on this... why can anyone place a factory? Or a house, even? But I really don't feel that it takes away from artisans in any way.

Here's another thing to consider: How many artisans (and especially architects) RENT lots from non-artisans? I know I do. I'd go right out of business if I had to do it all on my own and had nobody to buy from.

Resource availability could be rebalanced by higher extraction rate harvestors and/or higher concentration deposits. There is more than one factor in the supply/demand chain for optimization.

At face value, increasing the extraction rates and limiting harvestors to artisans would seem to be greedy. but remember, if the supply is the same or more, cpu for resources will actualy drop. Even more so if certain artisans become proficient with thier operation and make a name for themselves with a respectable vendor location. Increasing availability again and lowering cpu. So if this was the case, we can see that artisans will be making the same ammount of money as before, they will just be selling in larger volues at a reduced price.

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CraftAddict wrote:
Resource availability could be rebalanced by higher extraction rate harvestors and/or higher concentration deposits. There is more than one factor in the supply/demand chain for optimization.

At face value, increasing the extraction rates and limiting harvestors to artisans would seem to be greedy. but remember, if the supply is the same or more, cpu for resources will actualy drop. Even more so if certain artisans become proficient with thier operation and make a name for themselves with a respectable vendor location. Increasing availability again and lowering cpu. So if this was the case, we can see that artisans will be making the same ammount of money as before, they will just be selling in larger volues at a reduced price.

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The question is, why should in need to be unbalanced (limiting harvesting to only Artisans) in the first place, requiring a rebalance by increasing resource density? I don't think that would work anyway, but even allowing for the sake of argument that it would, it's not a good move.

Here's the essential issue, as I see it. Harvesting is not much fun, and it's not something that a high-end crafter can do enough of on their own. Goods already cost enough as it is, and limiting the amount of resources harvested by limiting the number of people that can harvest it will only cause things to become both harder to find and more expensive. Since I can't keep my vendor stocked as it is, I don't see why we should even consider something that cannot have any effect other than to reduce the number and quality of items crafted, while at the same time raising their price.

As an Artisan, I prefer to spend my time crafting, not gathering the materials for crafting. I'm assuming that anyone who is a dedicated resource merchant/miner has at least the Surveying tree, and simply locates spots and pays other people to place harvesters for him or her. This, to my mind, is a Good Thing(tm). It means more money changing hands, more people getting services, and more resources being plugged into the economy. Limiting that will reduce the amount of money that changes hands, and reduce the amount of raw materials available, forcing crafters to work harder and pay more for materials. Not to mention that such a move would probably make a few folks drop crafting altogether because it wouldn't be worth the hassle any longer, and that would make things even worse.

I use most of my lots for factories and pay miners to get my materials, because it's a better trade-off of my time and money. I would really be badly impacted by limiting harvesters to only artisans, and I think a lot of other crafters would be as well.

Sheesh, what kind of stupid tree did you all grow on? How bout this, you all need novice Marksman to fire a gun. Don't want to do that, then you need novice Brawler to fistfight. Don't want to do that, then you burst run from every meatlump who wants a piece of you. Can't do that, then you die.

Some things should be doable by all characters regardless of base class. Its dumb enough that we need novice Scout to pull out vehicles when they auto-store out in BFE, and I hear that SOE is even doing away with that so this folly should go nowhere.

You can place a harvester but you won't know where to put it until and unless you have Artisan. If you don't, you need a wp from someone else. You are still dependent on others so what's the problem? Resource prices aren't high enough for you guys?

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EdOWar wrote:

There's a simple economic reason why anyone should be able to place a harvestor of any size...reducing the number of resource suppliers will increase the price of resources. This in turn increases the prices of finished goods, and makes life even harder for starting characters and non-combat crafting players. It also would tend to inflate prices for all goods and services (including looted items, like holos/krayt tissues/new loot schems/etc.), not just crafted goods. The economy is screwy enough; cutting the number of resource sellers in half (or more) would drive prices through the roof.

Slim Vargo, Corbantis

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I agree.. you want to completely crush server economies then limit resources and increase demand on everything. The only way I can meet demand and keep my cost down as an Architectis by renting lots from members of my guild (non-artisans). Just look at enchance packs as an example; good avain meat is in short supply, which raises the prices of that resource, and further raises the price of end product because demand far exceeds the amount of product that the doctor can produce. You limit the amount of ore I can get my hands on and you'll be paying 250-300k for a large house.