Artisan Archive

The system currently allows elite crafter characters to be able to make everything themselves.

To make the economy and trading system more "interesting" I am wondering if the following might work.

As a player progresses higher in the skill trees the earlier schematics become disabled. Most higher level schematics should include one or more components from lower level skills. This would allow lower level characters to have a market as they increase their skills. This could also allow for merchants to be used more since they could act as middlepeople in the selling process.

To facilitate this would probably mean changing the current schematics to include some new components. The new component schematics would then be added into the lower level skills and some current components could be moved lower in the skill trees.

The tricky thing is figuring out when the schematics get disabled. My initial thought would be you can use your current skill level in the tree and the one below it. When you reach an elite class (say Droid Engineer) you would have the same disabling technique.

New component schematics could be added to Master Artisan to provide components necessary for the level 3 or higher skills in Elite classes.

This is just a bit of rambling on my part. Any thoughts?

Mavev Ohi
Novice Chef
Ahazi - Corellia - Kor Vella

Schematic Revocation was in earlier betas. It got removed because of HUGE nerf outcries.

I could go either way on this issue. What does the rest of the community think?

Bianca Minola

Depending on the exact implementation I thought it was a neat idea. Something that wasn't in another MMO.

I'm of two minds on this one, too. I completely agree with the goal: the structure of crafting professions should limit competition between high- and low-level crafters.

The problem is that professions encompass so many skills that there wind up being only two levels (Artisan and Elite Crafter X) of crafter. With the number of skill points available, it's relatively simple to retain basic Artisan skills while also learning elite crafter skills.

Thus, the feeling that the only options were to either limit skill points (remember, until the game was released the limit was expected to be 200, not 250), or actually impose rules within the crafting professions only that cause low-level skills to be "forgotten."

Obviously neither of these was felt to be acceptable. So that's how we got where we are now.

Like Alacrity, I'd much prefer that high-low level competition be minimized as an emergent property of the entire structure of crafting professions, rather than being something arbitrarily imposed by specialrule. (Hey, what can I say? I'ma free-market, "invisible hand" kind of guy. ) Additionally, I have to admit that I don't see all that much competition between high- and low-level crafters. As noted, the prices that can reasonably be charged for low-level products and high-level products are sufficiently different as to help minimize a lot of competition. Besides, honestly, it's easy enough to level up so that one is no longer a low-level crafter.

So, overall, I'd say this isn't enough of a problem to warrant interference. However, if Something Had To Be Done, I'd advocate a radical restructuring of the professions system to have fewer skills per profession, and more than just two levels of advancement.

--Flatfingers

Instead of removing schematics for higher level crafters, they could change the distribution of experimentation points.

Example:

Take the weaponsmith ( my elite profession)

Actually no one will buy a weapon from a non-master WS because theyhave lesser stats. Instead of have 1 point a novice and basicaly 2 points added for each level of crafting techniques, we could have let's say 3 points a novice, plus 5 points per box of crafting technique. these 5 point can only be used with the skill boxes on the same level. So a novice WS with only 1 box in ranged weapon crafting get 3 exp points. If he get's the first box of crafting techniques, he now have 8 exp points.

Getting the second box of ranged weapon crafting bring him back to 3 exp points, second box in crafting techniques, 8 exp points. etc...

Masters get another 2 points of exp, for a total of 10.

This will bring novice crafters close to masters, but masters will still make slightly better weapons. Novice can sell their weapons for a lower cost then masters, still get some sales in and make some profits.

i didnt check the other crafting professions, so i dont know if that could apply to them, but i suppose that all the professions got the same basic skill tree, 3 skill of crafting and 1 for exprimentation.

What do you think of this?

(this was written before and after lunch, and is really two different thoughts )

POST PART I

I think you should deter elites from crafting newbie items, not force them. Perhaps by limiting experimentation on low level items. I think a dev mentioned this actually...

Example: An Engineering1item could only ever use a maximum of 4 experiementation points. That means anyone with 4 or more experimentation points would be equal in their ability to craft an Engineering1 item, since they could only use a max of 4. You could still compete by using better tools, etc, but I think experiment points arethe majordifference bewteen new crafters and masters. Take away that advantage, and the master crafters willdecide they'd rather focus on master-level items.

On the down side, this will require careful balancing ofat which levelyou can build/wield an item. We'd never see well crafted Battle Staffs, since they'd be impossible without experimentation, so it would hurt low level polearm fighters...

POST PART II

Hmmmm...well shouldn't price naturally be the deciding factor? I know when I'm going out for dinner, I judge food quality vs. how much it'll cost me. Sometimes I want cheap-but-crappy McDonalds, other times I'll spend more elsewhere on a nice steak; however, these are VERY short term investments. When I build my computer, or buy a cellphone, I'm sure to pay for and get what I want, since it's important to me and I'll have it for a very long time. In economics, this is called Durables (last 1 year or more)and Nondurables (last less than 1 year).

In real life, a taxi-ride costs $5 but a car costs $15,000. A car is a durable and will last you for a long time, but a taxi ride is a nondurable and is 'consumed' as soon as the ride is over. However, the taxi is 3,000 times cheaperunless you do a good amount of driving

Weapons and armor are durables, people who buy them are making a long term investment, and often a single weapon can be the deciding factor of their character's success. So they only want the best. As Emadon (see sig), I just got a sweet laser carbine which I don't plan on parting with anytime soon, even as I earn more certifications. I spent a lot of money on it because it's my character's livelyhood, plus, besides guns and armor, there'svery little he ever needs to buy.

So the real problem is that over time,Durables costs arenegligible in SWG. 14k vs 1k for a gunmay seem like a lot, but not if you'll be using the weapon for three months before you buy another one, and it does twice the damage of a cheaper one. Assume you play 5 hoursevery evening. Over three months,a 1k credit gun costs you 2.2 credits per hour, or 11.1 per evening. That's one delivery mission. A 14k gun costs you 31.1 credits per hour, or 155 per evening. That's just two delivery missions, which you can run at the same time if you like. The costs/prices are way out of whack of what they should be for durable goods.

Now if it were 100k vs 1k, that might make more of a difference! But it does not really cost a master weaponsmithany moreto make a great weapon than it does a novice to make a regular weapon. Sothe master can charge a price that's not significantly higher than a regular one, and nobody buys the regular ones. Maybe we need to make it more expensive to craft a given item based on how much experimentation you do on it?

If we can fix the economy/pricing (good luck!), then there'd be a need for low lever crafters. Until then, we'll be stuck with this issue.

Schematic Revocation gives me the creeps. I did not like that method of enforcing a market for younger Crafters, and it added an extra layer of player-interdependence that too that concept too far.

Let the market take care of itself in this regard; experienced crafters make more money producing high-end items, so most of them will stick to those items. The few that don't will likely get out-sold by the younger crafters anyway.

Would a Master Carpenter actually forget how to drive a nail, or an Engineer how to turn a screw? They might want to hire someone of lesser skill to do the mundange work for them, but they shouldn't be required to.

I personally would be upset at someone taking away a skill I took the time and resources to learn to further my craft.

T'kara

Well the revocation would run into problems with balance as lots of people became master and few people were novices etc. However a system where you get limited schematics that you can choose, would allow a lot of personal customazation without hurting everyone. Then put in some kind of schematic migration so you can change your character if you decide you want to learn other shcematics.

This could potentially create a lot more niches in the market. I'd love to see several masters choose to make different items and focus on different areas of the market instead of being uber in everything.