Artisan Archive
Thread: Do you like your weakness in combat?
EledrenRontas wrote:
I see plenty of fire in people's posts in this thread, both haruspexs' and malles'. Haruspex is not asking for uber combat abilities, and although I myself do not posess a pure crafting character, I can see his point.
Crafters, currently, only contribute to the game by creating a variety of items and there it pretty much, well ends. Since beginning to play SWG as a crafter I realised how difficult it actually is to move about with few combat skills/abilities, so I made sure I developed some marksman skills.
/bow , that doesn't sacrifice much.
However, to actually get very far in crafting, or exploring the galaxy, or doing things with your friends, you NEED combat abilities. When looking for resources, Aggro NPC's can pop up right in front of you with NO warning, and if you are a pure crafting character, then you have no means of defending yourself.(drive around on a vehicleor use a lvl 10 pet)Thats just to play your profession as it was intended, why should you have your backside handed to you everytime that happens? Even against relatively low level mobs? From what I can see, Haruspex isn't looking for combat abilities to be just added to crafting professions, he's looking for a hybrid fighter/crafter class, which I see nothing wrong with.Combat Medic anyone? In todays military's combat engineers have as much of a place as combat medics.
Now I don't know about the idea of having elite crafters being a pre-requisite for using advanced combat droids if the droids are as you say pre-programmed, but I don't think with a slight application of suspension of disbeleif, its a big leap to make.
What I see here, regarding to "in todays military", is that you cannot draw paralells (sp?) to todays military. The droids that are in the game now I can only see as usable by anyone, but if there were some droids where you would need some kind of computer or hardware to run, then I could agree on that there should be a profession to control them.
When you say that crafters should not have fighting ability, would you agree that fighters should not have any crafting ability? I think you would, yet all the benefits a crafting character can possess, producing wares and making a good profit from them is available to every combat template out there. Yes you're right when you say that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to put a schematic and resources into an automated factory, but in real life it doesn't take a rocket scientist to fire one pistol when you know how to fire another. Take the whole weapon certification system, if I gave you a beretta and told you how to shoot it, would you actually need a greater skill level to fire a colt 1911? I think not.
You do have a good point here that I have overlooked, since you require training in a specific weaponand not just a group of weapons, but wouldn't it be a bit exaggerated to do that in game?
Combat professions do have access to the majority of the content on the game by way of exploration of POI's defending themselves in harvester runs, the GCW PVP and PVE, they can also run a business in practically the same way as elite crafters. An elite crafter can run a business, and is basically stuck in his shop making items, or running survey or crafing missions with practically no combat ability. (Yes, if you spendall your points on crafting, not if you are a elite crafter. There is a big difference) This does to me, seem to be a great matter of unbalance. Game content is grossly in favour of people with combat professions, with crafting being little more than an extremely repetetive point and click game.
"Then if you don't like crafting be a fighter" I hear you say? SWG is touted as a game with viable playable crafting professions, which it is, if you have an extremely small attention span, or an obsessive compulsive disorder. You've got to face it guys'n gals, after a short while, churning out items can get a little boring, (asI stated I don't just 'churn out items', I take orders, socialize with thecustomers and with my guild and when I can Iroleplay(as I thought was the meaning of roleplaying games))and you shouldn't have to completely overhaul your character to even see a small part of the galaxy without having your backside handed to you.
Keeping three master crafting professions and letting go of the dabbling in one is a total overhaul? As I see it, you don't like the process of crafting. Sure, I understand many don't, but that's good for those who actually do enjoy it, leaves a bit less competition.
You're perfectly right in saying that crafters shouldn't be good fighters, at the same time though, fighters should have no ability to manufacture items, factories or not. And what is wrong with a profession, the artisan equivalent of combat medic I honestly don't know...
If they want to produce items, they would have to get a schematic, which has to be created by a crafter. Now, the crafter can charge whatever price he desire, then it is up to the customer to pay it or leave it. I don't see it as a nerf, I see it as another oppurtunity to make money.
PS. Sorry for the long post
Hehe, it gave me some to think on at leastOh btw, I try not to flame, but sometimes I go out of control
KatMiag wrote:
who cares if hes right or wrong ( aperently most of you guys do) his point was, ifu wanted to master 3 crafting professions and get part of one, ur screwed in all combat related stuff,(rare compnents animal resources, ect) and starwarsfan was the only one to come up with agood solution (get someone to fight for you) Whichif you aresuch a loser u cant even make friends on swg, then PAY someone to walk to your harvester, guard you while u sample ect. Ur a crafter! make something and sell it! MONEY IS MORE POWERFUL THAN GUNS
Heck if your on bria and want to hire a bodyguard mail Katanikay, ill walk you to your harvesters and such
In short the soulution to the crafters not being able to fight is money ( dont bother flaming me or whatever i probably wont read this thread again, so if u respond to me make it purely for the benefiet of those who came after me and not a FLAMING response cuz i dont care what u have to say)
Love n Hate
Katanikay Miagura
Zabrak Ch-Dancer
Wookiee Artisan-Image Designer-Swordswoman
Thanks KatMiag!
KatMiag wrote:
who cares if hes right or wrong ( aperently most of you guys do) his point was, ifu wanted to master 3 crafting professions and get part of one, ur screwed in all combat related stuff,(rare compnents animal resources, ect) and starwarsfan was the only one to come up with agood solution (get someone to fight for you) Whichif you aresuch a loser u cant even make friends on swg, then PAY someone to walk to your harvester, guard you while u sample ect. Ur a crafter! make something and sell it! MONEY IS MORE POWERFUL THAN GUNS
Heck if your on bria and want to hire a bodyguard mail Katanikay, ill walk you to your harvesters and such
In short the soulution to the crafters not being able to fight is money ( dont bother flaming me or whatever i probably wont read this thread again, so if u respond to me make it purely for the benefiet of those who came after me and not a FLAMING response cuz i dont care what u have to say)
Love n Hate
Katanikay Miagura
Zabrak Ch-Dancer
Wookiee Artisan-Image Designer-Swordswoman
Thanks KatMiag!
EledrenRontas wrote:
Thank you for the thoughtful respone Malle
I can agree with driving around in a vehicle, and possibly a level 10 pet (one of which I have and just seems to like sitting there dumbly
)
Anyway, you're right, currently crafting isn't one of my favourite things on SWG, but I think thats cause I'm not quite far enough along yet.. I've got novice armorsmith, but no synthetic cloth crates yet, I'm pretty sure my enthusiasm for it'll pick up once I start making some more complex items.
Yes, I believe so too, not only that you will have the satisfaction of building more advanced and useful items, people will also probably be buying more things from you. If not, just walk into Coronet with a master elite crafter title on
On your note of not seeing a profession specifically to control these new war droids, I can understand what you mean, but I severely doubt that will happen. As Haruspex said, I can't see the dev's giving such a boon to standard combat classes beyond a certain droid level. Much like none CH characters are limited to level 10 or below pets. I t has also been said, by yourself I beleive that you see CH as a necessary profession for creatures, yet this same CH profession captures and trains their creatures, so there is some similarity with droid engineers who would create the war droids. There could be plenty of in game reasons for the droids to be unavailable to characters not posessing of this profession as we all know that the game doesn't exactly follow the films, or even other canon SW material. One could argue that the war droids require special maintainance which only this profession can provide, or the use of a certain control mechanism.
If what haruspex has said is true and the rollout of war-droids has been postponed till a suitable class is agreed on, then I wouldguess that this is the line of thinking the dev's are taking. Giving powerful war droids to the community at large may be considered akin to giving players access to higher level pets. In a realism (as far as the SW universe goes) I can fully agree with you that war droids, like all droids, should be available to all characters. From a game mechanics point of view however... I find it a bit harder to accept.
Well, it aint actually the CH's that make the creatures, they tame them. BE's can make creatures
Anyway, moving on, I agree that its a little over the top to allow all characters to be able to use all weapons, with some basic training with no major combat penalties. The only way I can see it working is if the weapons system and combat system are overhauled so that all combat skill levels give are specials and accuracy, and I think we both know how likely that is.
/nod
And yes I was exagerating in saying total overhaul, and I guess you're right. I guess its hard for me to imagine developing a character without realising the need for some basic combat ability, and when I think of it of that point of view I can only think thats the way the dev's imagined it.
Finally though I have to dissagree on the schematic thing. Say someone grinds to master architect and has a schematic for practically every structer that an artisan can create. This person can then surrender architect and start grinding on another artisan, or a combat profession yet still basically maintain the functionality of an architect, or whichever profession they choose. You could argue that players only have a limited schematic space, on radiant however, droids with schematic storage compartments come quite cheaply and can be used to expand a players schematic storage ability.
Sure, if someone did that they would be very variable and could work as a <insert crafting profession here>, but remember that every schematic requires unique resources. He could just as well just create the things and store them on a vendor.
Now, if anyone did this, though I doubt anyone will, I can somewhat agree on that it is a bit bad, but it's a keeping item. I could compare it to aarmoursmith creating a armour;
Anyone can use it
You can save it for later use, even if you drop armoursmith.
You can't create it without being a armoursmith. (Presuming it is not a schematic)
Hope you understand what I mean (no matter if you agree or not
Anyway, I guess I'll wrap it up for now, sorry for my incoherance, its getting a lil late
Haruspex77 wrote:
In every other profession (though really weak for Entertainers) there is some combat advantage gained as you use up your skillpoints. Medics and elites can heal themselves and others, Scouts and elites can kite better and get combat value against creatures (and can go Creature Handler), and of course Marksmen and Brawlers are all combat bonus. Entertainers can at least heal mind wounds in camp.
But Artisan and its elite professions have nothing usefull for combat that couldn't be bought and brought along.
This doesn't matter much as a newbie when skill points are plentiful, but with elite crafting skills you can't afford much by way of combat ability. Most of those quests, loot drops, and dungeons are shut off to you. Don't even think about PvP or you will be promptly wiped out, faction points will be hard to get. Harvester runs are hazardous. You may even have trouble getting out of the house some days if aggressive spawn shows up on your doorstep.
What are you going to do when your friends want to go on a serious adventure? Choose between staying home or being a tag-alongwho doesn't contribute much. Or maybe start dropping those crafting skills, or playing an alternate character. In the long run, starting a crafting character is a dead end. That character will either change or become a mule who is only played on occasion.
There is a way out, if we pushed for it. Droids over Lv 10 cannot be given to combat types because they can be leveraged with other skills and make high-end mobs trivial. But they could be used by Artisan elite professions without any balance problems.
Do you want your character to die without ever seeing the Nightsister's cave, a Krate dragon, or the other great things your galaxy has to offer?
I was almost a master artisian at once and am now picking it back up again. But i have to say artisan is not a combat profession, only a profession leading u to more advanced crafting, artisan is for the non combat person or some who needs a vendor (my self) or to make money. So i do not believe u should get any skills in combat or anything like that, but maybe a droid would be kool. Like artisans being able to control a certain droid not contrable by other professions, but not the strongest droid, just a different one that might have some special abilites or attacks if u know what i mean.