Artisan Archive

I am very disappointed by the boredom involved in being an Artisan. I want to be a weaponsmith, yet I can't make any ranged weapons other than the CDEF class until I get to weaponsmith. I have to get a total of 10,500 General Crafting XP (500 + 1000 + 3000 + 6000) just to qualify for weaponsmith, which is fine as weaponsmith is an elite profession, but the only weapons I can craft to get there are:
Novice Artisan
CDEF Rifle
CDEF Pistol
CDEF Carbine
Survival Knife
Eng 1
Wood Staff
Eng 3
Dagger
Eng 4
Heavy Axe

So I'm forced to craft other junk that I don't care about and I basically just want to powerlevel to get to the point where I can craft a real weapon. I guess I *could* make some really nice CDEF weapons but why? Am I going to create a name for myself making really good low-level weapons? Do I even want to? How are people going to find them with the current Bazaar mess?

Then I decided to pick up Marksman to take a look at my prospective customers. Boy was I surprised to see that a Novice Marksman has a cert for a DLT20 Rifle but a crafter cannot make one until Intermediate Firearms Crafting, a weaponsmith level 1 skill. Right off the bat a marksman can use, and will want, a weapon that I, as a crafter, cannot make until I get to an elite profession. How does this make sense? A weaponsmith should be able to make elite weapons for elite characters. An aspiring weaponsmith should be able to make better than average weapons for lower-level characters. As it is now where is the market for an aspiring weaponsmith? Any marksman will immediately want (and be able to use) a weapon that I cannot make until *much* later. So I spend my time making weapon-powerups because they are a quick and dirty way to get General Crafting XP; the good ones I sell for a modest profit but most just get trashed.

Now understand that I am NOT saying that the weaponsmith weapon schematics should be spread out into the Eng skills in Artisan; this just reduces the usefulness of the weaponsmith profession. The solution is for there to be more weapon types so that aspiring weaponsmiths can make a CDEF weapon, then a Little-Bit-Better-Than-CDEF weapon, then a Little-Bit-Better-Than-That weapon and so on; then once you get to weaponsmith you can create elite weapons. There should be a similar restructuring of the Marksman certs to more closely match artisan crafting abilities. This will:
Reduce the tedium in getting to weaponsmith by letting you create things that are interesting and useful.
Create a market for aspiring weaponsmiths
Keep weaponsmith as a useful and profitable profession

Basically my complaint can be summed up like this:
The elite crafting professions should be able to craft elite items, but don't cripple Artisan to make it so.

Are the relationships to the other elite crafting professions similar to this? Any thoughts/comments?

Akmad
Soon-To-Be Weaponsmith
/tell for items and prices

Hey Akmad,

I find a lot of artisan kind of boring personally. I'm working on moving up with weaponsmithing in hopes that it will improve over the next few weeks/month.

As far as making CDEFs go. If you make a decent or very good one and want to sell it, just rename it to something lie AK 24-56 CDEF .. so you have your name in there, the damage and the type of weapon. It'll draw attention faster than just regular CDEF that someone churned out to flood the market.

hope this helps a bit.

Be multi-skilled. Low-level skills are easily surrendered once you get in the higher ranks. Right now, i'm a Artisan/Marksman/Scout/Medic. I know, lots of stuff.. but here's what I do:

Artisan: Eng 4 Dom 4 Surv 4

Marskman: Pistol 4 Rang 4

Scout: Explor 3 Hunt 3 Trap 2

Medic: Novice

What this means is that I am 100% self suficient. I have 9 harvesters running, which means I need cash. I have the pistol skills to do destroy runs, so figure ~3500 per outing. While there, I can skin/de-bone anything to get scouting skills up and use the hides for artisan. When I take damage over time, I camp and use novice medic skills to get to feeling nice. I make money from making products, selling excess resources/power and doing missions.

Being able to do multiple things and explore new areas make this very fun. I couldn't just "grind" all day at being an artisan only. I have to manage a business while also getting to blow stuff up...very cool.

When I get into the more specialized areas, i'll have to surrender some skills...but who cares, at that point your geared to do a single task only.

Enjoy the game, go explore and see the wonders on different planets.

Orich

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LaserFloyd wrote:

As far as making CDEFs go. If you make a decent or very good one and want to sell it, just rename it to something lie AK 24-56 CDEF .. so you have your name in there, the damage and the type of weapon. It'll draw attention faster than just regular CDEF that someone churned out to flood the market.

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Thanks for the suggestion, this is actually what I did while I was making CDEF weapons but I just found that it got dull to continually make CDEF's after I got to Eng 1, Eng 2, and Eng 3. Why should I be bored and make CDEF's when I can be just as bored and make barrels at a better resource to XP ratio and get to weaponsmith faster? My point is that the reward for getting these skills (the schematics) doesn't give me any feeling of progressing in weapons crafting.

Cultivate your business. From a game mechanics standpoint, of course, there is no point to crafting low-end weapons since they don't get you weapons XP, but if you spend some time customizing and experimenting your weapons and selling them, you can build a customer base that will stick with you as you move up (finally) into weaponsmithing.

Grinding isn't fun, but you don't HAVE to do it. Play your character, not a spreadsheet.

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Orich wrote:

Be multi-skilled. Low-level skills are easily surrendered once you get in the higher ranks. Right now, i'm a Artisan/Marksman/Scout/Medic.

...

Enjoy the game, go explore and see the wonders on different planets.

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This is exactly what I have done (Brawler instead of Medic though) and it I agree completely that this makes the game fun. I should have made a point to say that I still really enjoy the game because I do go off and play with my other professions. My complaint is that Artistan isn't as fun as it could be.

Be multi-skilled. Low-level skills are easily surrendered once you get in the higher ranks. Right now, i'm a Artisan/Marksman/Scout/Medic. I know, lots of stuff.. but here's what I do:

Artisan: Eng 4 Dom 4 Surv 4
Marskman: Pistol 4 Rang 4
Scout: Explor 3 Hunt 3 Trap 2
Medic: Novice

I agree. This is the combination that I am using. I've found that you only need to spend a few hours at medic and you can get to the level II skills and craft better medicine. Mix artisan in with the Scout/Marksman combo (that everyone likes) and you get a tremendous amound of breadth in what you can do in the game. I also agree with the post about having to eventually surrender these skills down the road, but who cares? That'll take months, and I'll have had more fun getting there since I've multi-professioned.

I don't think crafting is boring I can't wait till I get all the different types of resources and can experiment with them. my problem with being an artisan is this. I can consistantly craft 29-59 dam 3.4 speed CDEF weapons with slightly less than normal special action costs and I have found on naboo on my server thereis no market for them, I can't even give them away. there are so many listed on the bazaar that I have to scroll through about 7 pages of CDEF carbines just to find the one I put up for sale. I've examined about 25-30 different CDEF weapons on my server and not a single one is as good as the one I'm making yet still no one is buying, are players not searching for the best weapons on the bazaar or are people not using the bazaar at all, I've tried hawking my wears on the street corner so to speak and STILL I find no takers, I'm only asking 50cr for these weapons, but no one buys is anyone else having the same trouble?

I'm working toward weaponsmith too and being multi-skilled has definately helped the fun factor a ton. When I get tired of the artisan life I grap my carbine and go hunting with people. Although that is much harder for me to do now that I have harvesters.....

I like crafting but the sheer # of items you have to make to advance and the sluggish game econ really make crafting very tedious. I'm going to stick with it hoping things will improve and my character and the game mature.