CUEmu - Thread Posts

KorinKarada

Fri Mar 12, 2004 6:07 pm

CrackoDoom wrote:

im an armorsmith. i do a few custom orders. as far as i can tell, these orders wont meet req'd specs.

true, the game's economy is crap right now, but is this really the answer?

as a master armorsmith, all i can guarantee is that if this patch "nerfs" my armor, i'm going 100% combat. how many others will follow? i suppose we'll see.

/shudders at the thought of no crafters.

thats okay we can all just go tk and fistfight all day...wont that be exciting

They say "When life gives you lemons, make lemonaide." But what do you do when life gives you crap?

eman7h

Fri Mar 12, 2004 6:12 pm

#210

Rencon wrote:

Chrysalide wrote:

Tailor: You cant experiment anything anyway... yeay

Ok, the crafting nerf dosn't affect me too much right now, as I'm only a Tailor. However, if this hapens, my little Armorsmith wannabe char will have NO chance in breaking into the market what so ever.

Devs, please don't go through with this! You are our only hope...

Morhea Jakri | Eclipse
Mayor Of Baulder Dash, Tatooine
Shipwright

Triahge

Fri Mar 12, 2004 6:14 pm

#211

ok this is a LONG thread and i havent taken the time to read every item or idea. however i just left the game after 1/2 playing and 1/2 hour of TOTAL frustration with the crafting process. i experienced 1 crit fail (completely acceptable) and over a dozen various failures during the experimentation phase on 3 different enhance kits. i could never fully experiment one line (effectiveness) to it's max. i got the same failures at the same point in the process with the same % reductions, and for the last 2 points i got the same % increases each time.

one conclusion would be that even when you have ALL the clothing adds, 38% station, etc they do not affect experimentation positively.... are they broken or is this planned in this patch? is this patch not only affecting the choices you have when crafting but the process as well?

if the latter is true then i think there will be a mass exodus away from crafting AND an increase in prices as the crafters that remain will incur HUGE costs justto develop a schematic that WILL be competitive and saleable. this certainly wont enhance the economies of the game.... it will cause the availability of items to lessen, and the prices of resources to climb as we need more and more to perfect our items; with a supply and demand economy many gamers will not have the patience to spend MORE time seeking out the tools crafters make that are integral to enjoying the game.

my 2 cents' worth but this is a paraphrasing of the conversation i had with several crafters tonite.

tri'ahge- proud to be LeBT

Tri'ahge <SHOCK>
"LeBT...SHOCKing"

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GrafvonSoden

Fri Mar 12, 2004 6:59 pm

#212

If you want a real understanding of where the economy problems lie - go to the trade forums.

Arnwald

Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:00 pm

#213

Hello,

I'll try to be CONSTRUCTIVE as most of us are here even if I'm *#$...

The first thing wich killed the economy AND the game is the HOLOGRINDING.
Ok you are wroking to revamp theFS Slot thing so I won't talk about it.

The second thingis the price of Jedi components.
On this one only the Jedi should be able to extract the components, this would level the issue in 5 minutes.

The third thing is the looting process... in the borgle cave for example
A totally noob can come here camp the whole day and get uber tapes wich he can sells for Millions

The fith thing is the lack of creditsink : there is nothing I mean nothing to spend your credit into when yu are rich.
You could have implemented an uber insurance system with very high fees preventing decays on any insured item.
I'm pretty sure people would have been glad to pay over 100k a week to insure they beloved rare weapon / piece of armor / item from any decay. (And the 1% decay was abad idea)

The sixth thing is the personal vendors implementation : we don't have anymore a look at the whole market as we only browse local markets. Bring back the ability to browse the whole markets / vendors and the economy will level pretty soon. Even implement a filter search function and the market would level way faster. Maybe implement the ability to deliver item directly from one place to another for a fee. Any empty vendors really su**#

The seventh thing is the low diversity of the crafting process. Level up the effect on armor ham experimentation and weapon ham effect for example. There is no interest for a Weaponsmith to experiment on HAM atm.

Now about the crafting thing,

if you really put this live be sure to first :

Fix the schematics that calls for a resource which currently does not even carry that characteristic

Remove the cap on caped resources

Fix the spawning rate of rare resources and be sure they spaw with good stats

DESTROY all prenerfed crates of items ; yes you read well

Refund all crafters in high end resourcesAND powerAND credit needed to build the crates

Prepare for a riot

Well I can say I understand your whole concept an I see a few thing in this :

You are levelling the mobs to have higherHAM and higher resists

You are levelling player items to be lower

You are levelling DOCS buffs to be lower

You are levelling combat specials to eat more ham

==> You are making us weaker to force us to group

Shimond

Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:05 pm

#214

One other quick thought:

The more you nerf crafting, the more you raise the already unbalanced dependancy on dropped items and 'uberloot'.

That's not the kind of game you guys were trying to make, right?

I remember a Dev Team that said the best items in the game would be crafted.

I don't see how this change helps that.

-Shi

sabacc1000

Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:06 pm

#215

Forgive the lack of new material, but i'm a little tired of writing these reasons out, so i'm just gonna cut-and-copy a couple of my previous statements about why i feel this new crafting system will be bad for the game, both short and long-term. Since none of these issues have been responed to....

somebody elsewrote:

From a game balance standpoint, it's actually a good idea. Game is still too easy and part of that is the power of the items.

Lower the absolute power cap of new items across the board while at the same time making resource quality and experimentation more significant within the new range. The argument that it makes novice crafters unable to compete is a strawman. That argument has been in place before release and doesn't take into account that their is not just one single global market but instead hundreds of little markets spread across the planets. Plenty of room for folk.

The backpack change is probably needed. While there are honest folk who used backpacks for bulk or custom orders, I'm certain human nature has kicked in way too many times and people have been screwed because they didn't know what they were buying. Heck, stupid people sometimes can't handle buying single line items.

People will yelp...but ultimately it's better for the game.

I think you're missing the big points here. We're not complaining that, from strictly a game balance point of view, this is a bad change. In fact, I think you'll find that many, many crafters will agree that items in the game are becoming too powerful for the game environment. 80% resistance armor, for example, is likely very bad for the game. It makes everything easier, takes away some of the high-end content that makes the game fun, and destroys immersion in many cases (sorry, soloing krayts or Ft. Tusken isn't very "Star Wars"). I'm not picking on armorsmiths either, it's just the extreme example. The same argument could easily be made for high-end weapons, buffs, food...etc.

I think most crafters would agree with that. But we're going to keep making these items, and people will keep buying them, simply to keep in competition. I'd go as far as to say that a well-concieved plan to lower the quality of all items may even be embraced (if such a thing can exist). But this is not the way to go about it, and that's what we're "yelping" about.

I don't know if you've read the arguments against this change, but from your comments, you clearly don't understand out complaints. This new system will create a system in which every crafter has to make exactly the same items. We will be forced to spend all experimentation points on one thing, no matter what. This is NOT FUN. Our ability to customize items, to add our own personal flair, will be totally removed.

The only way a crafter will be able to retain some essence of this personalization will be with skill tapes. I don't need to tell you the exorbitant prices those things go for, and despite popular belief, almost all crafters cannot afford them. The problem with the gap between "haves" and "have-nots" will no longer simply be between masters and non-masters. In addition to the resource gate (which I'm sure you know is HUGE, much more so in weapons and armor especially), now all personalization is dependent upon getting these skill tapes. So instead of the two tiers of sellable items being masters with exceptional resources, and masters with good resources, they will now be masters with exceptional resources with skill tapes, and masters with exceptional resources and no skill tapes. It is raising the bar of competition and making it even harder to break into impossible markets, but doing so by actually decreasing the quality of our items.

Personally, I think taking all the fun out of crafting and yet making it much more difficult to compete in the market would be enough to get upset about. But here's the kicker...this won't even do what they want it to for at least a year. We all know about this change already. Any crafter who wants to be competitive in the months following this publish is already stockpiling what will soon become the "pre-nerf" items. In the quantities that these things are being made right now, my guess is that these "pre-nerf" items will be being sold off vendors for the next 4-6 months at premium prices (unless of course all the old masters quit crafting, which is something i'm starting to hear a lot of whispers about). I also don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that these items will be being used very regularly for at least a few monthseven after we've all sold out of them. Which means that we're looking at possibly a year or more before these unbalancing items are cycled out of the system.

In the meantime, no new masters will be able to enter the market, since they won't be able to offer these quality items. Note, this is not a complaint that novice crafters cannot compete, but that masters, even with great resources, still cannot compete without the very best resources and/or skill tapes. The casual player will be crippled in comparison to other players, because they'll be unable to afford the high prices crafters will be charging for these items. Now, they could buy sub-par items, but then they'll be unable to compete in other aspects of the game.

So....crafting becomes un-fun, and harder for yet unestablished crafters. Many of the old crafters will quit, leaving those who stay with de facto monopolies. Skill tapes become tantamount, and thus more expensive and nearly impossible to get for most crafters. A pre-nerf economy is created, crippling the economy and perpetuating these problems for a year or more. Can you honestly argue that that is good for the game?

If the devs want to come up with a system to limit items that makes sense, I'm all for hearing them out. But this system is just not the answer to the problem.

And from another thread:

I'd like to know if a couple things were considered in respect to this change.

1.) You say this is our opportunity, and that being the "smart" crafters we can capitalize on this. Well, that's great for us, but what about everyone else? You can say that those of us who are in the know, are better off than those who don't bother coming here and reading the forums, and I'll grant you that. But this game has already seen the effects of a pre-nerf economy with the scatters, launchers and FWG5s, so we know what's going to happen. In response, those of us who know about it will be stocking up big-time (and don't underestimate our industrial capacity). Before, the changes and thedemand for pre-nerf weaponscaught us somewhat by suprise, and yet there are still, several months later, many of these weapons around (as can be seen by the outcry against the bug introduced with the last publish). It's not such a big deal because of the fact that it's only affecting these 3 weapons. This time, however, we'll be better prepared, so the pre-nerf stuff can be expected to last much longer, as more of us produce many more than before, just to try and compete with each other. Also, this will affect every single weapon, so the effects will be much more profound. So the way I see it, we'll likely have all the major smiths stocked for the next 4-6 months with these pre-nerf weapons.

Isn't that encouraging the monopolies that the vendor change is trying to reduce, since this is necessarily discouraging competition by creating a group of "haves" and "have-nots"? Also, how is a new smith supposed to enter into the economy any time over the next few months while this merchandise is available, since it will be impossible for them to ever make the quality of product that is available now?

2.) I don't think it's a stretch to say that the most "fun" part of weaponsmithing is being able to customize weapons. Whether it be for a particular customer, or to offer something "different" than all the other smiths, we like having original products any way we can get it. Right now our options are limited.This is because of one immutable fact: The customers ALL want max damage / min speed (which are the same line of experimentation for weapons). Unless you are able to provide weapons with comparable damage and speed, you might as well not bother, and that's not an exaggeration. But as it stands, many weapons don't require all of our points to max this experimentation line, so we have some extra wiggle room to play with HAM, durability, or range modifiers. While this doesn't make a huge difference most of the time, it's our only way to distinguish.

Does the development team realize that this will necessarily create cookie-cutter items, since every single customer wants the maximum damage output no matter what?

Ackeeba Owadu
Master Weaponsmith - Intrepid
Ackeeba's Weapons Emporium - The Promenade
Tatooine (2599, -4428) outside Mos Eisley

"In the modern lexicon, to sully a reputation would be "to talk smack about."
- Niix Starkyller

Weaponsmizzle..../wearTshirtWithPride

DialUp

Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:13 pm

#216

Whst SOE spends its developement resources on is MIND-BOGGLING

I'll never understand why so many broken parts of the game stay broke, while working parts are being altered...

Fwap

Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:19 pm

#217

Just want to make my voice heard. I think this change is a horrible idea, for the numerous reasons already mentioned. In my opinion crafting is one of the better things about SWG, and you know what they say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Fwap Munemasa
Master Armorsmith

TandisWhisper

Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:21 pm

#218

SOE'sfavorite command

/addignore customer

Here it is in a nutshell. By reducing crafters to one line experimenters, you are NOT making more varied products since the bulk of customers want the same thing. Hi damage/speed weapons, hi resist armor, hi potency med packs and chef food. That is what 90% of the products being made will continue to be, they will just be less effective. If you want to put varience in... then do that. I've never understood why damage and speed are experimented on the same line. A single shot from a weapon with hi speed should do LESS damage than a single shot from a slow weapon.This is just one example and I'm sure there are other ways you can actually vary crafting equipment. Making everyone only be able to max out one line in crafting will only make more people putting out the same product according to the resources they can use.

The ONLY way this is going to allow new crafters to get established is if the crafting community as a whole come together and establish a pricing fix. So that the hi end crafters charge exorbant prices for the hi end products they make, so that the new crafters can make the best they can make (which will be sub par to the hi end stuff) and be able to sell it at a reasonable price to the rest of the general public.

Missions have got to drop in reward and reduce the huge influx of credits. When you can take a single mission that will pay for the new weapon you just bought, that will last you for 3-4 weeks if you take care of it, 10 missions or so will cover a new set of hi kinetic ubese armor.. etc.

My theory is, it is not the economy you are trying to fix, its the entire game that you pushed out before it was ready and made entirely too easy just so you could see the first Jedi immerge in a couple of months from release. Someone said earlier there is no end game. Well, I hope he meant HIGH end game. I fear the END game is alot nearer than you think.... Now you are trying to introduce the hi end game with the additions of dungeons... one at a time. People are crowding the places so bad that you can hardly move. There is no group looting system, since this was supposed to be a 'non-loot' based system, so the ninja looters are running rampant.

People are bored.. point blank. When people can run through and master every single class in the game before it's even a year old.. something is very wrong. Now you have a loot based system, which you said SWG would not be, since hi end composite on Radiant sells for 200k, Dragon pearls sell for 3-5 mil, crafting SEA's sell for 1 mil a point (and soon to be more I bet). AFK campers and looters are everywhere. The only player made items that sell for a million credits thereabouts are those that are made with limited run schematics and looted items.

While I, as do most of us, appreciate your explination of the new crafting system... or rather the reason for it since you did little to explain it, it still comes down to one comment....

We at SOE, even though we have acknowledged your concerns, could care less about what you think. We put out a broken game system to the public before it was ready, and wanted to see Jedi's in the game before we had them ready. To do this, we had to make credits easy to get, hi end equipment readily available, and elite classes that can solo 90% of the game. Now that you have gotten used to this system as a customer, and we have a suitable number of jedi in the game, we are changing everything, like it or not.

Thats like selling someone a Ferrari, letting them drive it for 6 months, then turning it in to a Yugo and expect them to be happy about it.

Tandis Whisper -- Radiant
Master Ranger/Master Swordsman
Di'Bolari
Master Doctor/Master Bio-Engineer
Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Nerfed

nolan007

Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:25 pm

#219

I'm not sure how this is going to "help" the economy.... basically, my impression is that subpar crafted items will be still be sold for the same priceeven if it's less quality.

~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=~=
Star Wars vs. Star Wars Galaxies
(Revised 07.07.05)
( Maybe one day these ideas will be considered or implemented. Bump it, please? )

AudioOrgana

Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:28 pm

#220

Likaeus wrote:

1) I fail to see how this will help the economy to any degree whatsoever. Please elaborate.

I think their point is this is good for the "long" term game. I do not agree the ends justify the means, however, and I think that long term game theyare talking aboutmay bemuch longer away than we realize.

This will cripple the economy for at least 6 months,maybe a year or more- there are enoughcrafters with schematics and pre-made items to last for quite some time. This post was just made today, but we have known about it for weeks now - and TH even suggested that "smart" WS would be stocking up.

And they have been.

There is enough stuff already made, sitting unbought on vendors and fresh in factories and in banksto last a very, very long time. And the prices for these items just went way, way up.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. Are they really planning for SWG -three, fouryears down the line? If they are, they are banking on the fact that people will stick through until this change is finally realized, when the pre-nerf items finally dissapate and the economy has some chance to recover.

But that's a very long time in MMO's.

As I said way back on page two, this would have been an excellent change - in beta, or in very early live. But at this point, close to nine months into the game, asking us all to swallow this huge nerf, which will produce million-dollar weapons overnight and continue to ramp up higher and higher until the final pre-nerf item dies, it just feels too late to make such a sweeping change.

The "uber-loot" in SWG just got player made; and those people rich enough to own them already are going to grow much, much richer - while everyone else is grinding missions to pay for them.

If you think Hologrinding effected the economy, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Audio

Brakkan

Fri Mar 12, 2004 7:30 pm

#221

One of the dumbest ideas to date. What I really want to know is.. what's next? I'm trying to think of another part of the game that works as well as crafting/experimentation that they can destroy ... drawing a blank here, somebody help... Maybe shuttles only arrive every 20 minutes?

Why not increase the cost of cloning on advanced planets? Or one of 500 ideas that have been posted to fix the economy...

Simply amazing are the lengths that the devolpers of this game are willing to go to totally mutilate it...

Development Cycle Archive

Thread: Understanding the Crafting Experimentation Changes