Business And Economy Archive
Thread: Does the level system turn new players off from becoming crafters?
Epichistonian wrote:
LuckyEMS wrote:
so basically CU killed non combatent.
I always wanted to be MAS Pre CU but post CU i wont get invited to any decent groups unless im 80 i thought SWG was better then this prejudice Bullsh!t but i was wrong. Which is kinda hard when trying to get my level up.
This is the sad part. A single combat mastery template has almost as much damage potential in a level 80 group as a level 80 person. I proved that earlier today when I went krayt hunting with some friends. I outdamaged a few level 80 riflemen with my wonderful level 54 swordsman. However, too many people don't realize this.
The CL80 should have more tricks in their bag to use to make things even easier than a CL54. With so many Respec professions, i don't think a lot learned all the tricks they can do. But many might also went with defesive tricks so they are not big damagers.
Its more of a matter what specials, offensive, and defensive boxes you go for. But for crafters, it is a bunch of nothings. But old vet crafters have been in this state before and can handle it just fine. Its newer crafters who never had a day without armor, vehicles, and great weapons who are having a harder time adjusting.
But i still hate having my harvies camped. It bothers me asking someone to stop doing what they are doing to kill a few spawns and stand around bored while i do my thing. And no way will a pay someone 10k for 30min (the going rate the last i belive i saw) to do that either. And they call crafters gready. 
truth is, many of the new players that i have talked to ask about how to become jedi first
i'm thinking that it is seen by incoming people as the ultimate goal
it is sad really...the CU made many veteran crafters quit and many others respec'd out of the crafting profs. thus many servers have seen a shortage of certain things...particularly armor.
going into crafting was always a bit of a steep entry fee anyways as soon as they understand the 12 point crafter versus 10 point crafter issue but seeing as the marketing campaign is clearly leading people down a jedi path, this is just another reason not to take it up
i wear a master artisan tag and i'm actually getting fewer requests for training ... not more post CU
i personally find that sad, and at the same time, i notice even i'm not doing as much crafting as i used to
C
Chessack wrote:
/raises hand
Well not exactly that, but...
I had no interest in an MMO. I was happy playing NWN with a couple of friends. We figured MMOs would just be full of jerks and uber-leets (we were right about that LOL), and that we were better off running our own game the way WE wanted (we were pretty much right about that too -- which is why we have gone back to NWN after all this time). Most RPGs in general are not designed the way I would have them. I am an old-time Champions player and games with levels and lack of true customization (D+D and all the hundreds of copies thereof, for instance) left me unsatisfied.
Then I went to the SWG website one time just to check it out, because I am such a hopeless Star Wars fan. And they had the manual online. I read it, and saw all the things it did that I always said I was looking for in a game... One was use-based experience (you get experience for doing the thing you are skilled in) -- rather than generalized experience where you gain a "level" and then magically all the skills you haven't used for 6 weeks suddenly get better. Another was all the non-combat stuff in the game. Crafting, harvesting, and running a business sounded COOL... it sounded like something different and unusual. And what really hooked me even more than that was dancer, musician, IDer... that you could have a fully developed character whose role was to do something like that, just boggled my mind. That they had put full motion captured animations into the game for these professions, well... now I just had to see it to belive it.
Once I was in the game, I was blown away. This wasn't just a game they were making... it was a whole WORLD. Player-run economy, players crafting everything, paying each other for services... player medics in the med center... an entertainer band to join in the cantina. Wow... this was a whole universe, and I got to be a part of it.
So yeah... what sold me on SWG, was the non-combat aspect of it... that for once, finally, someone had realized that there is more to roleplaying than just beating things into submission with a sword, and actually built an entire game around that realization. The crafting and entertaining sections of the game manual, on line on the SWG website, are what made me buy this game. If it had just been combat classes, I would've shrugged... and moved on to another web page.
I am not alone. I got 2 other friends hooked on SWG for the same reason -- because it was a whole world and not just combat. Guess who? Yup, the 2 guys I used to play NWN with. We enjoyed NWN but we got tired of most of the lazily built modules that were, you guessed it, JUST combat. After joining me in SWG (3 months after I started), one of them became a dancer/TKA, and the other became a CH/scout/resource seller. The latter guy ended up with one of the biggest resource-gathering-selling businesses on the server and when he left the game 8 months later, he gave me about 2 million units of valuable resources he hadn't gotten around to selling yet and... 20 million (!) credits.
SWG attacted all 3 of us for its non-combat elements. Oh sure, we liked the combat too -- it was fun. But without the non-combat stuff, it would have been just another video game, and unlikely to have made us want to purchase.
C
same here i came in on the 14 day trial, and fell in love with it. masterd entertainer, dancer/ID medic, doc/ID, befor i ever stared a combat aprofession, marksman doc/rifle and was always more doc then rifle. back on point: most of my in game friends where entertainer,artisians, merchants and crafters. but the cu with it's fantasic, bag-0-number, level system, seems more like every other "shooter" out there. and not verynon-combat frienly. 
d4mit Jim, i'm a doctor not a combat medic!
Chessack wrote:
/raises hand
Well not exactly that, but...
I had no interest in an MMO. I was happy playing NWN with a couple of friends. We figured MMOs would just be full of jerks and uber-leets (we were right about that LOL), and that we were better off running our own game the way WE wanted (we were pretty much right about that too -- which is why we have gone back to NWN after all this time). Most RPGs in general are not designed the way I would have them. I am an old-time Champions player and games with levels and lack of true customization (D+D and all the hundreds of copies thereof, for instance) left me unsatisfied.
Then I went to the SWG website one time just to check it out, because I am such a hopeless Star Wars fan. And they had the manual online. I read it, and saw all the things it did that I always said I was looking for in a game... One was use-based experience (you get experience for doing the thing you are skilled in) -- rather than generalized experience where you gain a "level" and then magically all the skills you haven't used for 6 weeks suddenly get better. Another was all the non-combat stuff in the game. Crafting, harvesting, and running a business sounded COOL... it sounded like something different and unusual. And what really hooked me even more than that was dancer, musician, IDer... that you could have a fully developed character whose role was to do something like that, just boggled my mind. That they had put full motion captured animations into the game for these professions, well... now I just had to see it to belive it.
Once I was in the game, I was blown away. This wasn't just a game they were making... it was a whole WORLD. Player-run economy, players crafting everything, paying each other for services... player medics in the med center... an entertainer band to join in the cantina. Wow... this was a whole universe, and I got to be a part of it.
So yeah... what sold me on SWG, was the non-combat aspect of it... that for once, finally, someone had realized that there is more to roleplaying than just beating things into submission with a sword, and actually built an entire game around that realization. The crafting and entertaining sections of the game manual, on line on the SWG website, are what made me buy this game. If it had just been combat classes, I would've shrugged... and moved on to another web page.
I am not alone. I got 2 other friends hooked on SWG for the same reason -- because it was a whole world and not just combat. Guess who? Yup, the 2 guys I used to play NWN with. We enjoyed NWN but we got tired of most of the lazily built modules that were, you guessed it, JUST combat. After joining me in SWG (3 months after I started), one of them became a dancer/TKA, and the other became a CH/scout/resource seller. The latter guy ended up with one of the biggest resource-gathering-selling businesses on the server and when he left the game 8 months later, he gave me about 2 million units of valuable resources he hadn't gotten around to selling yet and... 20 million (!) credits.
SWG attacted all 3 of us for its non-combat elements. Oh sure, we liked the combat too -- it was fun. But without the non-combat stuff, it would have been just another video game, and unlikely to have made us want to purchase.
C
same here i came in on the 14 day trial, and fell in love with it. masterd entertainer, dancer/ID medic, doc/ID, befor i ever started a combat aprofession, marksman doc/rifle and was always more doc then rifle. back on point: most of my in game friends where entertainer,artisians, merchants and crafters. but the cu with it's fantasic, bag-0-number, level system, seems more like every other "shooter" out there. and not verynon-combat frienly.
d4mit Jim, i'm a doctor not a combat medic!
I came for the combat (day 2 vet), but stayed for the crafting. I was on the verge of quitting when I started a business selling power to crafters. Through that I gradually got into the crafting aspects of SWG, and decided to go WS. Best decision I made in this game.
The new level system, especially with damage being at least partially determined by the difference in levels between the mob and the toon, encourages people to go full combat. It used to be that you could have a crafting profession and a combat profession and do very well. Now it seems you have to take two combat professions to be most effective in combat (with combining specials and stacking bonuses).
It's my understanding that most of the current crop of Devs were not here when the game was first designed. These are new developers, probably from other MMORPGs that are purely combat oriented. As such, I have a feeling these Devs have no clue how to design around non-combat players. In fact, I think they probably resent crafters and theplayer-based economy, because it gets in the way of their precious 'balance'.
We might eventually reach a point where SWG has so few crafters remaining, that the Devs put in NPC vendors and render crafting intothe red-headed stepchild that itis for every other MMORPG on the market.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
I realy started to enjoy it. But I couldnt be compeditive if I picked up bio engineer. So I had to pickup 0004 Pistols for the rootshots.
But I do realy miss crafting
The majority of new players, will probably be here because of EP3, and would want to immediately be a Jedi. Whether they change their mind and turn to crafting, I don't think the level system has that much to contribute to it.
I didn't (and I'm not) pick up/picking up crafting because it seems to complicated, competitive, and difficult. Such patience tp get the ball rolling; I don't have it
Well not exactly that, but...
I had no interest in an MMO. I was happy playing NWN with a couple of friends. We figured MMOs would just be full of jerks and uber-leets (we were right about that LOL), and that we were better off running our own game the way WE wanted (we were pretty much right about that too -- which is why we have gone back to NWN after all this time). Most RPGs in general are not designed the way I would have them. I am an old-time Champions player and games with levels and lack of true customization (D+D and all the hundreds of copies thereof, for instance) left me unsatisfied.
Then I went to the SWG website one time just to check it out, because I am such a hopeless Star Wars fan. And they had the manual online. I read it, and saw all the things it did that I always said I was looking for in a game... One was use-based experience (you get experience for doing the thing you are skilled in) -- rather than generalized experience where you gain a "level" and then magically all the skills you haven't used for 6 weeks suddenly get better. Another was all the non-combat stuff in the game. Crafting, harvesting, and running a business sounded COOL... it sounded like something different and unusual. And what really hooked me even more than that was dancer, musician, IDer... that you could have a fully developed character whose role was to do something like that, just boggled my mind. That they had put full motion captured animations into the game for these professions, well... now I just had to see it to belive it.
Once I was in the game, I was blown away. This wasn't just a game they were making... it was a whole WORLD. Player-run economy, players crafting everything, paying each other for services... player medics in the med center... an entertainer band to join in the cantina. Wow... this was a whole universe, and I got to be a part of it.
So yeah... what sold me on SWG, was the non-combat aspect of it... that for once, finally, someone had realized that there is more to roleplaying than just beating things into submission with a sword, and actually built an entire game around that realization. The crafting and entertaining sections of the game manual, on line on the SWG website, are what made me buy this game. If it had just been combat classes, I would've shrugged... and moved on to another web page.
I am not alone. I got 2 other friends hooked on SWG for the same reason -- because it was a whole world and not just combat. Guess who? Yup, the 2 guys I used to play NWN with. We enjoyed NWN but we got tired of most of the lazily built modules that were, you guessed it, JUST combat. After joining me in SWG (3 months after I started), one of them became a dancer/TKA, and the other became a CH/scout/resource seller. The latter guy ended up with one of the biggest resource-gathering-selling businesses on the server and when he left the game 8 months later, he gave me about 2 million units of valuable resources he hadn't gotten around to selling yet and... 20 million (!) credits.
SWG attacted all 3 of us for its non-combat elements. Oh sure, we liked the combat too -- it was fun. But without the non-combat stuff, it would have been just another video game, and unlikely to have made us want to purchase.
C
Kryxal wrote:People are calling the current SWG level-based, but I don't think that's quite accurate. It's still skill-based, but with a level system spliced onto it ... probably worse than having it level-based in the first place.
I'd agree with that statement.
They needed to do one or the other... Free-form, or level based. The old pre-CU game was free form ("Levels" were just a convenient way of guesstimating your total skill set). A game like D+D or COH is level based. Post-CU SWG is a strange hybrid that doesn't really work all that well.
C