Artisan Archive

I think we would all agree that grinding is in no way entertaining. In fact, I would wger to say it is the least pleasant part of being an artisan.

However as it stands, grinding is the only way to progress through the elite artisan professions, and even the basic artisan profession takes a painfully long time without a bit of grinding to speed things along.

So what is the solution? What could change in the artisan profession to banish grinding from the game that future artisans may gleefully take pride in every item they create.

My suggestion is to greatly increase the amount UXP given to crafters. If raised high enough it would benefit an artisan more to get their items into circulation than to run in practice mode.

Other ideas?

Increasing the UXP (say, making itat least as much asyou got from just crafting the item in the first place) would go a long way toward encouraging crafters of all levels to contribute to the game economy rather than sit and grind resources into oblivion until they hit Master.

As it stands right now, the most practical way to advance in crafting skill, particularly in the elite professions, is to grind out thousands upon thousands of worthless items, either in practice mode, or using a macro and then destroying them en masse. This is not fun for the crafter, and it contributes nothing to the game world - it's just a hoop that must be jumped through in order to get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, which is being able to actually craft useful stuff. (I'm speaking from my experience grinding rifle barrels as a weaponsmith, and the shooting pains in my hands that were the price I paid for my first box of Crafting Techniques.)

If the intent is to enforce game balance by making crafters sink a certain amount of money/resources into their craft before they can advance in skill, at least make it possible to automate grinding entirely, possibly just by having factories give full experience like they used to. However, this is an imperfect solution, since it's still forcing players into basically meaningless rituals in order to gain experience. In an ideal world, the fastest progression path would involve interaction with other players (making and selling useful items).

Another possibility would be to make the Artisan crafting missions similar to their combat-oriented counterparts. Make the payoff correspond to the player's crafting skill, not their combat skill. Make the mission itself roughly as difficult as an equivalent combat mission, possibly requiring the player to obtain resource shim/herself rather than just pickingthree componentsup from one NPC, or perhaps traveling to multiple locations to pick up components from NPCs. And finally, make the crafting experience yield from making that component similar to the weapon experience you'd get from a destroy mission of an equivalent level.

I've got other ideas that revolve around increasing the ways that low and mid-level crafters could be useful to other players, but I'll refrain from dumping everything I've got into a single gargantuan post.

I dont get where you say grinding is the only way to go. I am over 1/2 way to master AS, and I have not ground things out at all. I have sold 85% of what I have made, the rest being turned over to practice due to poor quality or critical fails. I think that too many people just expect to be Master (insert Elite profession here) in a week, and the game isnt supposed to be that way! Take your time, learn how things work, sell for prices comparable to what you are making, and play the game the way it is intended...

It might be the difference in professions. I sold almost everything I made getting through the artisan tree. However, I believe that is less doable now that there are a number of master level artisans filling the bazaar with items of much greater quality for prices a novice artisan can't compete with.

However, the elite classes are a very different beast. As a DE I do not really get a marketable item until I've grabbed at least 3 or 4 boxes. Even then, I have to work extremely hard to get even a few sales. As a weaponsmith, it takes 2 or 3 boxes to get to the point where I can make a weapon more powerful than CDEF weapons due to the large number of experimentation points I get in the artisan skill tree. So, without grinding, I cannot make a sellable product, which is the reason I am an artisan in the first place; I want people to use the equipment I make.

I'm more than happy to take a year getting master [insert profession here] as long as I can make a wide variety of interesting goods that people will buy at each level. As it stands now, this is not the case.

The fix to grinding could vey well be making each level worthwhile so that grinding does not feel necessary. If that's the solution great. All I want to see is grinding abolished to farthest reaches of the universe. =)

I agree - the best solution is to make the lower-level items worthwhile.

I remember early on, during beta, there was supposed to be a "schematic revocation" system whereby you would lose low-level schematics when you reached higher skill levels. This was to forcecrafter to purchase sub-component items from lower-level crafters as they rose through the ranks.

While I don't 100% agree with this idea, it does have certain merit. Perhaps there is a way to bring this concept back and with it give the UXP for the items when they are used as a component by another crafter?

It wouldn't have to be as extreme as forcing masters to buy from novices - a lone master weaponsmith marooned on a desert planet with all the appropriate resources should still be able to crank out a T21 all on his own, I think. But providing incentives to do so would certainly make sense.

First, we have to ensure that the master-crafted basic components aren't superior to the novice-crafted ones. Simple enough - put an experimentation cap on components that roughly matches their skill levels.

Second, give the master crafter (or aspiring master crafter) incentive to buy components from novices, and the novice an incentive to sell components to masters. Perhaps an experience bonus on both ends for using someone else's crafted components? Apprenticeship experience for the master, crafting experience for the novice? Or if the master doesn't have any use for apprentice XP, perhaps just a special increase in weapon quality that can only come from having multiple people working on one weapon?

Finally, even given changes such that it's at least feasible to make it to master by building useful lower-level components, I still think that grinding should not be orders of magnitude faster. This might mean dropping the experience you get from crafting something waaaaay down, and boosting the experience you get from something being used, orrepairing damaged items,waaaaaay up.

i have a slow but easy solution for peoples who need gcxp. i wanted to keep this a secret cause i still wanted people to go out and harvest and sell resources. but i guess most good things must end. the one way that you can get a gcxp without harvesting any minerals metal fungus anything at all *sigh* is to take crafting missions. you heard me crafting missions. they give some money and about 40 gcxp a pop now that may not sound like a lot but deduct that from the amount of time you must spend harvesting running missions to support harvesters and everything. when you look at it in the long run it is work it

Crafting missions are excellent for complete novice artisans who are short on funds, but once you start needing thousands and thousands of experience for your next level, they just aren't feasible any more - it's way faster toset up a few harvesters (steel, aluminum, and ore) and just grind personal harvesters all the way to Master Artisan. (I ground through the entire Business tree in about ten minutes by doing harvesters.)

Contrast with destroy missions, which are tailored to your combat ability and provide rewards (both in credits and xp) that correspond with that ability.

No - We do not deserve more XP than we get already.

Artisan is supposed to be tough. You are to go through Artisan extremely quick, then once you get to your Elite Profession, it is supposed to a slow ride. I would be completely pissed if I mastered Artisan and Tailor in less than a week. I want this to have content and to be challenging.

But that's just me.