Artisan Archive

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Srednii wrote:

Harvester certs don't belong in the game. It's as simple as that. That havn't belonged in the game since beta when they removed the miner proffession. AN ELITE CRAFTING CLASS. There's no way you'll convince the devs, or even more then a mere handfull of players that that basic starting proffession "Artisan" should receive an elite classes skillset "miner".

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There's no need to convince more Artisans. It is an absolute fact that the majority of contributing artisans have been pro-certs since before I was the Correspondent - and that's been a while.

I'd retort, but every point that your side is making has been defeated, and you are rehashing old, invalid arguments.

Either you believe that all skillsets should be protected, or you don't - it's as simple as that. You believe in fairness, or you don't.

I'm all for arguing that every character should be able to use every skill, up to and including Jedi, That we should all be invulnerable, and do infinite damage with every attack. That would also be Fair - just not nearly as interesting.

I am having a very hard time believing that you guys are even serious - because you certainly aren't paying attention to the debate. Your side's argument is that the sky will fall in if anything changes - all combat chars will quit if they can't mine (although I'm not sure why they wouldn't be able to mine, unless they spend all of their skill points on skills they would rather have, which to me would mean that mining isn't a top priority of theirs) - and it is impossible for the devs to correct their past mistakes. Not a winning argument.

Bianca Minola

Message Edited by Srednii on 06-21-2004 06:55 PM

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Korlan wrote:

man you got some major hate for the artisan profession? Did an artisan steal your lunch money or something? I mean really.

I *like* Artisan. I am one.

Artisan is just as important to this game as a weaponsmith or armorsmith... so if we want to stake a claim on something that should be exclusive to crafting profession.. so be it.

No, it's not. It is as important to the game as Marksman, Brawler, Scout, Entertainer, and Medic. If you question where I dervied that list from, please open your Skills window and click on the All Professions tab. You will notice that all those professions (plus Politicians, but we'll leave them alone for now) are above this horizontal line-thingy. That means something in the context of the game. You should make an attempt at understanding what that means, though I'm sure I'm about to clarify...

Rifes are almost exclusive to riflemen..

No. ONE rifle is exclusive to Riflemen. The *best* Rifle. All the rest are available to the basic profession which supports Rifleman - Marksman.

Pistols to pistoleers....

ONE pistol is exclusive to pistoleer. All the rest are available to the basic profession supporting Pistoleer - Marksman.

Marksman is the start for all of these and is carried threw out.

Yes. And you need exactly one branch of Marksman to qual for Rifle and one to qual for Pistol... and you get all the Rifles and Pistols save ONE in its respective branch in the starter skill.

And so is artisan.. for the MAJOR players.

Artisan is a pre-req for all elite crafting profs, yes. Well, except like Doctor, Combat Medic, Smuggler, and maybe others that I'm forgetting at the moment.

The way I look at it, if you want to use the large harvestors... you should have Survey 4... period... cert to that branch only.

Can a Pistoleer with Marksman Pistol 4 use a DX2? Er, no. Can a Rifleman with Marksman Rifle 4 use a T-21? No again. Why the hell should an Artisan with Survey 4 use the *best* harvester then? By the very logic you used (which is tragically flawed anyway), only Novice Elite artisans should be able to effectively use Heavy rigs, including Fusion Ion Gens.

simple and easy... so all the elite crafting professions will just have to arrage some skill points but in the end the world will be a better place.

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BiancaMinola wrote:

There's no need to convince more Artisans. It is an absolute fact that the majority of contributing artisans have been pro-certs since before I was the Correspondent - and that's been a while.

Bianca Minola

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HalasterTheBlack wrote:

What? Perhaps you missed the thread in which Guru asked for votes on harvester certs as a top 5 issue, where the idea was voted down by a 9:1 margin?

Until THAT POLL, when someone raised a furor among the non-artisan community about this issue, the opposite was true. Imagine the ire that would be raised if a chef were to suggest that eating should be required, and that got out into the wild before the issue was thoroughly debated. The exact same arguments would be made in the chef forum (they are whiners, greedy, etc.) - the pro-eating crowd would ask the fairness question, fight the economic sky will fall folks' idiotic predictions of imminent failure of the whole system, and any poll conducted would be skewed in a direction that does not accurately reflect the views of Chefs.

Or perhaps you missed the current top 5 post where Guru invited harvester cert proponents to author an appendix to the top 5 list supporting their point, GUARANTEED TIME IN FRONT OF A DEVELOPER, and nobody has yet?

As a former Artisan Correspondent, I'll let you in on a little secret. The developers do not read, or give coherant replies to any Artisan requests or lists. Last week's developer 'answer' is a great example of this point. You can read my reply to TH's 'answer' if you really want to know how I feel about it.

Guaranteed time doesn't mean squat to me. A guaranteed class review, just as we were promised when vehicles went live, is what is necessary.

I think you're confused about what the word "fact" or "majority" means...

And I'm pretty sure you are having problems with the word 'debate'.

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Message Edited by BiancaMinola on 06-22-2004 01:16 AM

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BiancaMinola wrote:

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And I'm pretty sure you are having problems with the word 'debate'.

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Bianca Minola

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HalasterTheBlack wrote:

I have seen no facts nor logic from any harvester cert proponents that support why it would be good for the game. I have only seen people looking for 4000% profit margins on raw materials (i.e. greed).

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OK, then prove it.

Go back through this thread, and point out the person who is arguing for 4000% profit margins. Look at the pro cert arguments, and notice that very few of them were even touched by your side.

You can not make your points, and then ignore ours, and call it a debate. Your side changes the subject EVERY TIME wemake a point (you see in a debate, if I make a point that is not refuted - I win the point).

Bianca Minola

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BiancaMinola wrote:

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HalasterTheBlack wrote:

I have seen no facts nor logic from any harvester cert proponents that support why it would be good for the game. I have only seen people looking for 4000% profit margins on raw materials (i.e. greed).

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OK, then prove it.

Go back through this thread, and point out the person who is arguing for 4000% profit margins. Look at the pro cert arguments, and notice that very few of them were even touched by your side.

You can not make your points, and then ignore ours, and call it a debate. Your side changes the subject EVERY TIME wemake a point (you see in a debate, if I make a point that is not refuted - I win the point).

Bianca Minola

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He was talking about a post in another of many cert threads.

There are too many cert threads lol

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HalasterTheBlack wrote:

[snip]

"right now the Artisan profession's value vs skillpoints invested is very low.." (which was an opinion for which the poster offered no factual or logical support, btw)

Refuted 2 posts laterwith a post in whichAelei compared the value of all novice profs and showed the Artisan's value to be in the top 3.

This a a red herring. It has nothing to do with the subject at hand. I'll give you the point

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Joined offered a lot of opinions with zero factual backing. He's reasonably intelligent though and I tend to quote him and reply in-quote. I'll not repeat all of those here.

Then I'll not rebut.

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Outta put forth an argument about elite combat profs being able to "make millions" killing uber mobs AND skin them at the same time as an argument for buffing artisan.

The problem is that anyone can make millions, with very litle effort. This is one of the main problems with the economic 'gameplay'.

BUT Artisan is no elite prof and elite crafting profs already can "make millions". He's arguing that a starter prof should be able to compete with a combination of elite profs. Sorry, illogical.

Once again you confuse professions with skillsets. This might be the problem with your understanding of the argument.

Even if you JUST take the comparison of Artisan to Scout, Scout must be AT THE KEYS to make his money. Artisans can make their money while sleeping / logged out via factories and vendors. And Artisans make more in the long run than Scouts regardless, as proved by my Artisan who's selling 100's of crates of powerups a day.

Also a red herring. Anyone can use harvesters andfactoriesto make millions when they are offline.

[snip]

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Bianca noted that surveyors and miners had been nerfed because they were too efficient. However, the facts show that heavy rigs started the game with BER 10 maximum draw potential and now they're at BER 13. This is not a nerf. Inaccurate fact.

[snip]

The sampling nerf was not insignificant. Before the nerf,BER of hand sampling was about 50. The Harvesters were nerfed on test, from about 20 to the current rates.

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Bianca also noted that the economy would "take care of itself" if resource prices got too high. Meaning that if people saw it as advantageous to themselves, they'd invest the SP to be able to mine.

And I stand by that assertation. Economics stands behind it, hell even human nature stands behind it. People will do what they are rewarded for.

However, this is a game, not IRL. People will not choose a playstyle that they don't want. Combatants will NOT take up mining. There just won't be any more miners.

That is one of the most naive statements I have ever seen. How do you explain hologrinding then?

With harvester certs, there is no economic "magic hand", because people won't choose what they see as a "job" in the game. Without harvester certs (low barrier to entry), that "magic hand" does exist.

Where is your proof or logic associated with this statement? You have heard of supply and demand, right?

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We then went on to some interesting conversations about Ford, Ford's primary steel supplier, and mining companies, in which Ford was equated to the Artisan (never refuted). The logical conclusion: Artisans are NOT miners - Mining certs don't belong in their skillset. Well, Bounty Hunters aren't miners anyway and mining rigs don't belong in THEIR skill set either.

And you ignore the fact that I agreed that in a perfect SWG it would be a miner skillset. However there is no Miner, and there will not be anytime soon. It is ILLOGICAL to say that in the SWG system that Artisans are not miners. Fully one quarter of the 'profession' is related to mining. Do you dispute that???

Another way to say that is that Bounty Hunters and Artisans seem to have equal rights to harvesters, which they have under the current system.

Well, using your logic here, why are any certifications valid?Where is my right to a lightning cannon, or a lightsaber as an Artisan?

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Bianca talked about how certs might "breathe life" into the economic game of SWG but presented no facts showing that there is a lack of "life" in said game, nor any corresponding logic to show how harvester certs might improve this supposed lack of "life".

When everyone's a millionaire/billionaire except the noobs and the RPers, there is no economic game. Impress me, and tell me where you think the economic game is.

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Outta again addressed his perceived discrepancy between the earning potential of elite combat professoins vs. Artisans. Again the comparison is invalid because he's comparing a character with multiple elite masteries to another with a single basic mastery. The multiple elites should logically win out easily.

With the rulesets as they are, class/profession doesn't have a thing to do with earning potential except as it relates to mission difficulty. I am confident that I can make a million in a month with absolutely no skills. The biggest obstacle is the initial investment for harvesters.

An additional rebuttal to this argument is that the devs have stated that those with the most funds in their accounts are, in fact, crafters. The economic misbalance that Outta assumes doesn't actually exist.

Red herring.

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Velisimnerargued that the rewards for Survey IV are not worth the investment - that "anyone can plunk down a harvester and see if they got lucky with a spawn."

That logic doesn't stand up either. The reality is that someone with Survey IV can find a good density spawn of high quality materials within a couple of hours. It would require someone using the "get lucky" approach several hours or more likely days to achieve the same result, all the while costing him re-deed fees on the harvester every X minutes.

Survey IV in and of itself is, in reality,a HUGE advantage to the Artisan who wants to be a miner.

This whole argument is ridiculous. All you have to do to watch the landscape, and plop down your harvester in a field of harvesters when it appears. I have combat chars who have made millions using this technique, without the benefit of novice artisan - let alone survey 4.

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Numerous individuals chimed in with support for the thread and several reinforced the sentiment that Artisans should derive income from the goods they craft instead of by mining. We're crafters.

And we're miners.

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Bianca chimed in that she had "billionaires on several servers". I ask you, are these artisans or combatants? If they're not combatants, please feel free to jump in and refute Outta's contention that combatants are economically overpowered as compared with Artisans. Still, irrelevant to the discussion.

It's a mix, mostly crafters (I care about crafting - After 3 years of EQ I could care less if I ever see another mob - let alone spending mindless hours killing the same one over and over and over and over and over.....), but I agree irrelevant to the debate.

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Outta contradicted himself when he quoted SOE in saying that the Survey skill allows "Artisan to locate and extract small quantities of several different resources". Small.

I thought that argument was a leap too. I'll let him defend it.

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Korlan came along and attempted to explain how Rifles are exclusive to Riflemen and Pistols are exclusive to Pistoleers, so Harvesters should be exclusive to... Artisans?

I'm sorry, the class name is "Artisan", not "Miner". Doesn't logically hold up. It's a crafter; not a miner. Besides, only ONE Rifle is exclusive to Rifleman and ONE Pistol is exclusive to Pistoleer. Even by a liberal interepretation of Korlan's statement, Heavy rigs should be reserved for elite professions; not Artisans. This is exactly what I argued for in my original post.

It's the certification as a protection of skillsets argument reloaded. I wouldn't have a problem with Heavies going to the elites, but you do have to have pistol skills to fire a pistol, right??? Not exactly - you can fire a pistol without skills, you just hit 5% of the time. If you insist that it logically hold across 'professions' FINE. Anyone can place a harvester, but if you don't hold the proper certification for the harvester being used it is only 5% effective. Does that suit you any better?

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Bianca indicated that the majority of artisans support harvester certs, which Srednii and I answered inline with facts refuting that claim.

I am almost never on the boards nowadays, However I can say with absolute confidence that until recently the 'pro-cert'folks held the vast majority - it wasn't even close, unless the non-crafters got wind of a thread. NowI only peek in once in a while to see if the devs have come out of their corporate, nerf everyone into equality rather than come up with interesting solutions to LONGSTANDING MMORPG faults mentality. Instead, by their actions they have managed to sway a good chunk of the community - who followed this game for YEARS prior to it's release - into quitting, or believing that nothing innovative can be tried because you have to try and please EVERYONE. BULLHOCKY!!! Games (the good ones) are created by tweaking the rulesets - not by letting everyone do anything they want at anytime. That way lies anarchy. That way lies a very pretty, 3D chatroom, where everyone can do lots of neat tricks that everyone else can do, and nothing means anything.

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Eh, whatever. That's enough.

I don't need to convince *you*. I need to convince the *devs*. I would wager that the devs are much more logical and in tune with what the server economies really are, and how certs will really impact them, than you are.

And I agree - not that you are in tune, but that we need to convince the devs -to give us some real input. Not the mindless tripe that we've been getting as 'answers', but a discussion about the Artisan (novice and elites) game. I spent months as the Artisan Correspondent making lists, forewarding ideas, and begging the devs for ANY input. I was told that when 1. Mounts 2. Player Cities and 3. Vehicles went live, we would be given a class review. Vehicles went live, and then it became after JTL.

Where is the economic game? Where???

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BiancaMinola wrote:

The Harvesters were nerfed on test, from about 20 to the current rates.

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BiancaMinola wrote:

However, this is a game, not IRL. People will not choose a playstyle that they don't want. Combatants will NOT take up mining. There just won't be any more miners.

That is one of the most naive statements I have ever seen. How do you explain hologrinding then?

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I think the drive to become jedi is a little higher then the drive to become miners for most people .