Artisan Archive

I noticed a pattern in posts on this forum so I decided to write this post. I guess I'm still sort of new to the profession though, so someone might kill me for posting this.......oh well!

The first thing I have noticed is everybody complaining about the Artisan patch and how it increased critical chances and blah blah blah. I started my artisan after the patch so I have no idea what it was like before that but I have only had this character a few days and I can count how many critical things I have gotten on both hands. It sounded like it was bad but honestly, if this is an increase then critical instances must have NEVER happened before because they are still rare, in my opinion. My point is, give this up, you're just being greedy about this thing. So maybe that one out of a hundred shot of having a critical instance occurred while you were making your very first piece of bone armor (yes it happened to me) but so what, its not as hard as it sounds to find the bone and hide (I'll explain why in a sec).

I saw people complaining about money when they want to be a non fighting Artisan. Now unless you are REALLY stubborn on this point than this is a stupid complaint. I wanted to be a non fighting Artisan too but then I realized that it was unavoidable if I wanted to run any harvesters at all. So I decided to compromise and just increase my weapon skill a little, just enough to go and get some bone, hide, and mission money. If you want a lot of money, my suggestion is to get your weapon skill high enough to take down animals in three or four shots at the most. That way missions go very quick, then you can stop increasing the skill (I'll explain this in a sec too, sort of). If you only want bone and hide then increase your weapon skill enough to kill the low strength monsters right outside of your city in only a few shots. If you want to do missions then there is a certain way you can pull very low level missions while using a high quality weapon. I won't say how this is done because it could be exploiting. But even at high levels certain mission creatures like kreetles and gorgs don't change strength, more just come out of the nest so that means more bone and hide. You will easily get 1k from every mission plus bone and hide to make at least one piece of bone armor. It won't sell very easily on the market unless it is very underpriced but PLEASE do not do this. Keep prices pretty much the same so we can ALL make a little money on the market! If you just do not want to use a gun at all I can understand, sort of, but I'm not realsure why you would be so against it when nobody would really know if you go shooting things out in the wilderness by yourself. You can just put your gun away in the city and put a "Novice Artisan" title over your head. No one will ever know and it can be your dirty little secret.

Ok one last complaint I think is stupid for Artisans, the xp complaint. I have seen some people complaining about how hard it is for us to make xp and money like other professions. Yes we might have to kill a few things to get some spending money but it is really not that bad (I explained this above). If I only do a few missions a day and put 1k into each of my harvesters and generators (which can keep them running one day) then I do n't have to go back and pump more money into them every hour. If you are having to go and do more missions then you like to fund your harvesters then you might have too many of them for the time you spend playing SWG. Cut down to one harvester for a material you use the most and extract the rest yourself while you wait. Getting to Engineering IV is easy. Once you get your harvesters comfortablly going you can relax and craft things or go hang out (I am an RPer so my time is REALLY valuable to me because I like to RP my character in the cities). There is plenty of time and money for artisans unless you are just stubborn but you have to be patient and willing to compromise. I think now that I am about to go into an Elite Profession I might start thinking xp is hard to come by (28800 crafting xp seems so far away) but there are a lot of ways to break the monotony once you pay the upkeep on your generators, havesters, etc.

Ok MY complaint about the artisan profession and then I'm done. I have noticed on Kettemore that the market for bone armor (one of the few things that we make that might actually sell) has been flooded. It wouldn't be a big deal except people are trying to undercut other people's prices and so prices in the low 100s are showing up. I'm not sure what could be done to stop this but these people obviously have only a SMALL idea of how economics work. You try to make the most profit for the amount of time you put into something. If you have to spend 20 credits for listing something and you spent an hour making it, do not post the thing for 100 credits because you hate waiting for it to sell. It undercuts everyone elses prices and causes the market to go down. If we all post bone armor pieces for say...... 1000 credits at the minimum (as an example) then there might be a lot of pieces for sell at that price but there is a higher chance your piece will sell for more money and it might make making/selling things quicker. So you higher profession people please do not devalue the bazaar just because you can make higher quality level goods. The lower end people need the money they are asking. There needs to be some standard to pricing I think. Whether we make it or SOE makes it I don't know..... Oh and one more thing! If the market for bone armor was put at, for example, 1000 credits and there were a lot of pieces for sell, this would make it very important for you to get clients. Once one piece sold you could get that person to return to you for their armor for the same price. That way you guarantee your items are selling. Something needs to be done, though, because the bazaar is quickly becoming useless to Artisans and soon it will cause trouble when all Novice Artisan items cost 50 credits on the market and all elite profession goods cost either a lot higher, or the elite professions start pricing their goods very low because they created such a devalued market before.

I hope you guys aren't too hard on me about this post and I didn't ean to offend anybody but everything in this post is proven true by myself. I hope you guys quit complaining and just have some fun. Save your energy for when a REALLY bad patch comes out, because it will happen.

Goodluck!