Artisan Archive

I recieved this mail today and wanted to place it up here for discussion. My main job if to forward issues that the majority agree on so I want to hear all sides of each issues. Please take a look at this and post your comments.

The player that sent me this mail feels that harvesters are not broken. That resources are prediticable and that mails are not needed to keep track of harvester operations. He plays as a miner and pulls in 100k credits a week so feels the system works fine the way it is and that infact should be harder to use.

He also feels that loseing the power and maintance put into harvesters when they redeed is a risk and a needed risk.

I wish I could have cut and pasted him mail from the game but it would not work for me LOL.

So discuss and lets see where everyone stands on this.

I personally feel the system is adequate as it is. As long as they're not "truely" buggy, i.e. SWG connection lost when accessing them, it's all good. Sure it's a pain to maintain the harvesters, but it *should* be. I think it's kind of fun having the risk of not knowing when the resources are going to shift, or what will come up on the next spawn. I think as time progresses, you'll see people filling niches, like someone who makes quick bucks off doing nothing but finding the new hot spots right after a shift, and charging for waypoints. Not everyone is going to want to do all the legwork. I am not a powergamer by any means, although my wife would beg to differ. I log in at least a hour every day, usually more, so I just keep my harvesters at level to run for 48 hours at any given time, that way if there is a shift, I don't lose a wad of cash, and by the same token I can leave the game go for over 24 hours and not worry. So in closing I think that they'll enjoy a tweak here and there, but no need for any serious changes. I am sure many would beg to differ with my opinion. =]

Well I guess i will be the first victim.

Ok The Harvestors work fine in the command structure. They finally got that fixed as far as i know. I dont hear of anyone else getting CTDed when they try to access their harvestor or the server is not picking up their commands.

But onto the discussion at hand.

The resources are anything but predictable. First of all when we have a resource change sure there are other stuff you can mine/harvest using the same harvestor but you would be losing money and time when you leave a harvestor that was first at 90% steel for 39% copper.

So you have to pick up and move which granted is a good thing because it allows you to explore and to dodge red mobs or for me just take them out for other people.

One part of this game is exploration. Hence the scout class which all Artisians need or your going to go broke buying all the hide and bone that tailor/DA/Armorsmith requires that you use. Plus the devs did not create a huge world just for you to see 5% of it hence finding a better spot.

The only problem with moving a harvestor is your power which for some us who dont clear 100K a week. We live off every other cent because we have to or we choose not to do those quick kill missions.

So if we could have the option of removing the power or if that is not possible allowing the power to stay in the harvestor from when it is pulled to when it is laid down again. Then alot of people will be a lot happier because running those wind harvestors are rather expensive.

On it being harder to use. Remember if you make something impossible or tougher a lot of people will stop playing the tough class. Now remember they changed the sampling rates to every 25 seconds. Yet did not lower the ammount of resources needed to craft a certain item. So now you have to take more time to get the material and spend less crafting or making money. Yet since he already has his survey 4/Engineering 4 and probably some of a lot of classes. He wants to make it tougher for the new people that join on our servers everyday. When he did not have to go through the same hurdles to get to where he is at now.

I think the reason he would like to make it tougher is to keep his level in the resource game and make it more difficult for others to give him competition.

So what is everyone else's stand on this issue?

I agree that making anything harder in the game is just going to penalize new players and reward current players who have been around for a while.

On the other hand, I don't think we need to make the system any easier than it already is. Sure, not having to pay to re-deed harvestors and being able to operate them remotely sound like good ideas but you'll get to a point where harvestorswillbecome somethingeveryone can operate at 100% effectiveness without any effort or forethought. If that happens you might as well just let people convert credits into resources without any middle-step.

However, one really good idea I read in the forums was the suggestion of allowingdroids to perform harvestor runs. Theplayer still has to buy and maintain the droid sothey're notgetting something for nothing. Add an element of risk, likeeach droid has a small chance of losing the resources or a portion of the resources on each run. That way players who continue to harvest manually will be rewarded for their extra workbut the players whoprefer the convenience of a droid still have that option if they're willing to accept a small risk.

Wonderful responses here guys. Keep them coming.

I really stand somewhere in the middle here. While I don't really think it needs to be any harder I do think there does need to be a way to at least check status away from your structures.Not paying maintance or deposting power or removeing anything from them just a simple way to check status.

The reason I say this is that with no miner class artisans really have to get their own resources for the most part and a casual gamer may not aways have the time to log in just to check his structures. If a casual gamer keeps his structures payed up in maintaince and power well he could let them for for 3 or 4 days at a time or even longer before having to spend extra time to empty them.

How about a small fee for accessing status remotely so that there is a pentaly involved?

As for resource shifts. Ive not had a problem yet. If there werea miner class I'd play it though so I think it bothers me less because I like going out and looking and finding good spots and moving things around when necessary.

As for reclaimed resources and maintance what about a compermise. A random % change that some of your power and maintance returns to you. Say anywhere from 5 to 50% of it?

I wish I could just put a weeks worth of maint./power into a harvester and not worry about checking it first thing every morning. I could then just go out to it whenever I need more of the resource or when I notice the resource missing from the survey tool. Right now it is adequate, but it could be so much less tedious. If you didn't need to worry about overpaying harvesters then even a casual player could use them.

Plus it would be really cool to see all these little droids out in the wilderness trying to do their jobs while being chased by red mobs (chase chase chase!) Then if you went out to see what was up with your droid you might find it like C3PO after a battle with some Tusken Raiders.

Seriously, I just made Engineering III tonight, after playing for about a week. I am not as efficient at the grind as others are, I can tell, but I have had fun selling most of the stuff I have crafted on the bazaar, and also had fun "speculating" on the market, buying people's stuff that is listed cheap and then selling it again for higher.

The first thing I did when I got Engr III was use my wind survey tool to find a good wind spot. Of course, when I did, I found the wind FARM where all the other people had set up their harvesters, it looked like California! Then I found the closest metal patch (some Peris) and built my mineral extractor!

Well, I realized my mineral extractor took both money _and_ energy, which I had kind of read about, so I did my first "shuttle run" between my harvester and my extractor, made more difficult this evening by a bug where I could not create a waypoint (grr!). On my way back to power the extractor I almost got slaughtered by a red creature (burst run /peace, burst run /peace /peace scream of terror). So I have had some excitement.

Besides rambling on, I did want to reply that I think droids would make the shuttling back and forth much nicer and also provide interdependency with droid engineers, which I think is good.

Cyprian Carthage (Naritus: Corellia, Coronet City)

The system is fine. Resource rollover is 5-10 days, so unless you pay 2 weeks in advance you shouldn't get surprised by it. The resources will not always roll over at the same time. You can already see them spreading out.

I think they are putting in some email features in the next patch, but one certainly should not be able to access them, or put energy or money into them remotely. I like that fact that you have to go out there, deal with the critters, take time, lose sometimes, usually gain a lot.

If you are careful, you can sneak up to almost any harvester, unless the critter is right on top of it and will not move over time. Usually, even then, if you just come back in an hour, it will be clear enough to get to it.

So, leave them as they are. No emails, no warnings about resource changes, no remote access. If you cannot keep on top of it, mining is probably not a good business for you to be in.

I would agree with him, IF there was an active miner profession. Those few who play as miners, are not adequate to provide the resources needed by all of the artisan classes.

So, until that day, the amount of time needed to maintain harvestersshould be as little as possible. Notification by email is needed. Something that gives us an idea on the length of time before a resource shift is needed. And the ability to remove energy and maintenance fees is needed.

If they implement the miner profession, and there are miners who can get out there and dig stuff up for us, I don't care how hard they make gathering resources - let the miners decide what THEY want, then.

Bianca Minola

I've been an artisan for a while, and even back when I first started making extractors I felt they should have a remote system to access them. It would be a great service to make it so you can give permission to them remotely from a city so you can hire individuals or teams as a courier service to recover your resources, and possibly to supplypower to them. This way, you could have player-controlled missions in addition to those supplied by the computer, and both the artisan and the courier would benefit from it.

But you shouldn't be able to access them anywhere on the map; there should be a terminal set up in a city that would give access to your extractor. They could tack on a small fee for every time you use the remote system.

The fact that I just recently lost my only harvester to a bug (it no longer lets me access my own generator) makes me think differently. Having zero credits to my name makes that a pretty severe problem, as it was going to be my source of income, since you can't actually sell artisan items worth crap. Yes, I don't have a credit to my name. I just spent my last 700 credits on a ticket off of Tatooine.

I'm not a casual gamer in the sense that I play few hours, but I'm an eractic gamer do to my work schedule. I might play 8 hours one day, but then be gone 3 days.

I think the money issues with harvesters are fine. They are a big money sink for the cash that flows into the game. The cheaper it is to produce resources the less money everything costs. Crafters are the end post for most player money. Other than trying to XP up, they are not going to sell at a loss no matter what it costs them to make something. The cheaper you make resources cost, the less places money leaves the economy and you end up with people with millions of credits in cash which you already have, even though I'm a struggling artisan.
This brings up the side issue where samping, which is free, can produce resources much faster than two harvesters. It also brings up the issue that overall artisans don't buy resources because they can produce them much more cheeply themselves over the bazaar and more reliably. Right now there isn't a reliable market in resources.

I don't mind checking on my harvesters and putting money into them and maintaining them etc. Yes its a pain, but I would like to see people be miners and provide high quality resources to other crafters. I've done this some myself, providing high quality water to a doctor on another planet at as low a cost as I could. The economy is still forming.

I would like to plan ahead. Resources might be predictable, but being away from the game as much as I am I'm not sure I'll ever have the time to study it. I would like to be notified when my harvester shuts off because of resources changing or because it ran out of maintence. This would keep me from constantly having to check on them all the time.
I would also like to know when the resources are going to run out. I'm sure many will disagree. Maybe this will make it too easy. But if I go away for a few days, I'd like to be able to either fill it up with power and maintence and not find it stopped two hours after I put the stuff in. If that can't be done, then harvesters that aren't running shouldn't use up maintanece and power. Because I can't be around everyday I don't want to take on more risks than someone who can play all the time.

My vote Harvesters & resource movement are fine. leaning towards too easy.

No remote management, email notification ok.

There should be effort required to use them or at least use them profitably
- There should *not* be a way to status your harvesters without having to run out to them. Except maybe as a perk to some master class like 'miner'
- There should not be a way to empty your hoppers without having to go run out to them. no harvester droids.
- If not already in game. emails 'your X is low/out of power/maint' are fine, I guess. Wouldn't help me, I *know* the state of my babies at all times
- I like harvesters mining only one type of resource
- No extra abilities for fee, that just wacks the casual players and new players. helps the uber first comers stay on top.
- No extra abilities for *special* harverters (e.g 100% experimented ones or somthing, that just wacks economy/market. Only the very rich will be able to afford them and have even more money/eaiser time because of it.
- One problem (not for me though) I do agree with is that erratic players are screwed by resource shifting/ harvester maint. I have no good solution that doesn't jack everything up. Perhaps ingame email to real email brigdge but I don't dev's wanna open that up.

Anyone should be able to buy a deed and set up a harvester. NOT everyone needs to enjoy it or have it be trivial for them. There is no lack of resources in the game unless you are trying to grind master elite prof 'X'

Anything that makes 'the grind' more fun or less painfull does not really deserve consideration. Grinding is unfun by defention, it is not playing the game. A game where grinding *is* the main activity is a sad game (SWG is the only MMORPG I've seen that has a chance of not being sad). People who grind hope to get to a happy better place once they grind enough. That place doesn't exist. Enjoy life/game today cause you might be nerfed tommorrow.

The problems aren't with harvesters but with other aspects that interact with resource supply, demand, and the economy.

Compared to other aspects of the game harvesters are super easy. Bone and hide take some effort.

I mastered 3 trees of artisans from buying resources off the bazaar and surveying while standing around in town. I've never been at a loss for resources. I'm making money and earning xp. I dance at the catina occasionally. My life is good.

It has been pitifullly easy (taken 2-3 weeks 18hrs week. I think, not really tracking time, I'm having fun instead) I've earned skills/income potential to build and maintain harvesters well before my xp/resource needs increased enough to make me wanna try them out. I actually bought 4 deeds 3harv 1solar off the bazaar (500cr ea too good to pass up) and kept them for a week before I got the guts to sink maint money into 2 of them.


I view a good part of the 'game' as getting to master elite class I expect it to take 6mo-1yr. I think most people feel the game doesn't start until they are master elite and want it to take 1-2weeks.


CyprianCarthage
"So I have had some excitement.
... I think droids would make the shuttling back and forth much nicer"
But you would have missed that excitmment, eh? nicer==boringer


Redeeding -
I think I'm missing something as I don't see why any (crafter) would bother redeeding as it seems to cost so much and making a new deed is simple and gains xp (if you care about structure xp) The resources required to make one are not alot. If you can't make them they seem to be on the bazaar for less than the redeed cost.