Artisan Archive

Before, I agree, it was a bit too fast but now, it's entirely too slow.

I just created an Artisan on Tempest and I plan to (slowly) work my way up through the ranks of Weaponsmith at which point I will once again find master status, this time on a hopefully fresh server. The problem I'm having though is that I am pretty much forced to sample endlessly in search of materials just to craft weapons.

I've been sampling for the better half of an hour now at an 80% concentration and I have a little under 200 Steel. That's disgustingly slow. I understand that too much faster and it will fairly defeat the purpose of having harvesters, but, at the same time consider this. Would you prefer to have 9 harvesters up, sampling materials overnight for you collecting thousands upon thousands of materials simultaneously or leave your character on a macro all night long, to collect thousands of ONE material.

Anyways, I'm sure this has been debated endlessly and this post will likely receive a lowsy reception but I felt the need to express concern over this obvious flaw in the game. Remove the burden of crafting by simply allowing us to collect more materials in less time, perhaps not as fast as before but certainly faster than it is now. At the rate I'm going now, this is ALL I'll be doing tonight, sampling for materials.... more or less just watching my character sample materials for me the thought of which is enough to make me want to go back to Radiant and resume leveling my other character.

Thanks for the time.

I totally agree with you on hand sampling being way too slow. I think they're trying to find a balance and they just haven't gotten there yet.

From what I understand, they've been working on figuring a way to stop afk-macro sampling (please don't flame at me for bringing it up /ducks), which is, if I'm not mistaken, being run on the test server.

Okay, now that's outta the way... I agree with the hand sampling not bringing in enough to mass craft. It sucks and I've been there. Harvestors, in my opinion, are a bit slow though. I can hand-sample the same amount they produce a day in less time even with them slowing the sampling rates down. It's boring as all get out but, sometimes, if I really need that resource I'll do it by hand. And that's my gripe... why can't I, a Master Artisan, actually any level artisan for that matter, raise the effectiveness of a mineral harvestor so it pulls more out of the ground? I can only tweek the Hopper size... oooh that's really helpful. I can tweek Wind generators... but not mineral extractors. I am truly baffled. Make extractors work better and a bit faster (I'm paying out of my behind to maintenance and power them) and you won't have people macro sampling... am I right? Please someone tell me I'm not crazy...

And Illy, let me give you a tip (I promise I'll shut up as soon as I'm done), find the best schematic you have (i'd name one but I'm not sure how far into your artisan skill trees yet) - one that consumes a lot of resources. You're probably thinking "are you nuts? I'm upset that I don't have enough resources and you're telling me to use more?! You're high on spice lady!" Seriously, though, you get 2 points of experience per unit of resource you use so weapon powerups (Novice Artisan schematic; great sellers in the bazaar btw) only use 10 resources total... meaning 20xp as opposed to, say, a Chemical or Mineral Surveying device that's got 27 resources total and 54 gcxp.

Oh! and this site is awesome for schematics by the way (if you already don't have it!): http://www.swgcenter.com/index.asp

Okay /steps off her soap box sorry... just wanted to help. Thanks for listening to my schpiel!

(please don't flame at me for bringing it up /ducks)

I agree 100%. Macro sampling needs to go. It was nice but macroing in general seriously detracts from the game... oops, I said it too... /ducks..

All in all though, IF they get rid of macro sampling, they had better increase how much we actually get from it. I'm coming up on 4 hours now sampling and I hardly have anything to show for it. I've been sitting here sampling left and right and nearly going insane doing it. UGH..

Thanks for the tips though, definitely appreciated. SWG Center has grown tremendously, a lot of work has been put into that site, it's amazing.