Development Cycle Archive

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JustG wrote:

Howdy...

Thanks for the feedback thus far.

I would ask that you try to keep the emotional responses out of it... that has no effect other than to make us skip that post. I really appreciate the rational replies.

We are still reading... and thinking about this.

- g

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Don't equate "emotional" with "unworthy".

You're planning a fundamental change to OUR game... of course we're gonna get emotional about it.

NON-EMOTIONAL RESPONSE:

1) This change does not level the field between old and new masters for these reasons:

• old Masters have HUGE stockpiles of resources that new Masters can't afford to buy


• old Masters have +25experiementation tapes, the new Masters can't afford to buy


• Elimination of points to spend on secondary characteristics (HAM on weapons, Medical Use on meds, etc) means that everyone makes an identical product


• old Masters with +25exp tapes will be able to STILL distinguish their product slightly from new Masters by having points left after maxing damage or power..... but overall the items will be FAR below the current power of the same items crafted with the same resources with the same points

2) We did not ask for this. We asked for critical failures to be addressed because they were happening much too frequently

3) The worst thing that this will do is create a pre-nerf economy. We STILL have thousands of pre-nerf FWG / Launcher pistols in circulation and that nerf caught everyone by surprise. Current crafters are stockpiling these soon to be legacy weapons and will be even richer = affording more resources = monopolizing tapes = effectively crushing any hope for a new crafter to break into the market.

4) Some classes, BE in particular, will be crushed by this change when it comes to multiline experimenting.... DNA Template is gonna be horrible.

5) We did NOT ASK FOR THIS. Please leave well enough alone what ain't broke. I could rattle off 150 other things you could fix instead of breaking a currently working system.... if you want 150 things that are screwed up in your game, send me a PM, I'll type it out rahter than cluttering up this thread.

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Star_Ranger wrote:

Looking at this from a completely Artisian point of view I have already seen some issues with this experimentation system. My main concern is the changes will remove any variety from artisian goods. As a tester, I amalready getting requests for 100% crafting tools (15.00 rating); nothing less will do anymore. The new standard for artisian goods will be 100% crafted items only; sinceamazing successes allow these to be made without perfect materials by raising the material cap.

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Artisanonly has one experimentation line on most of their items (except food) so they are minimally affected by this change. Multi-line crafting (weapons, armor, food, meds) will lose all variety if crafters are only able to fill one line.

LowHAM armor is dead - no one will want a suit with pre-nerf encumbrance and abysmally lowprotection. Ultra-heavy armor will also suck, because the encumbrance will be even higher than it is now.

Many weaponsmith components will become worthless - currently the only reason to use advanced blaster barrels is for the large accuracy increase. Full damage experimentation on an advanced rifle barrel currently yields +2 damage over non-advanced (with the drawback of 0.1 less speed) but this only requires 5-6 points so there's plenty left to put into accuracy. If it's only possible to max damage, these barrels will be completely useless because they will have no advantage over non-advanced.

Advanced scopes will also be useless - full HAM experimentation on non-advanced scope yields +12 accuracy 0 HAM, full HAM on advanced scope yields 3-5 HAM with enough points left over for accuracy to get that up to +22 or so. If HAM experimentation uses all points, advanced scopes will be around +14 accuracy 3-5 HAM and there will be no reason to use them over the non-advanced version.

And then there's the effects on finished weapons, which will have the same damage/speed as pre-nerf but much lower durability and worse HAM because there's no points left to put into those after maxing damage (which is the primary line on every weapon, because all the others have minimal effects. No one makes full HAM-experimented weapons because their damage/speed is so bad that you can't even sell them on the bazaar.)

Ok lets look at the BIG picture!

Currently the devs think that Armor and weapons are too powerful! (yet they introduced schematics in the new dungeon for even more powerful weapons)

So far because of what the devs have given us "Everything to this point is solo'able" (with the right template) well almost!

They don't like this.

The dev's reason that if we "Nerf" crafting then the above will change!

however "Nerfing" wil ultimately make SWG defunct as new games emerge!

What needs to be done > in their words> is a "Combat Balance"

To keep the paying customers happy and the game playable and interesting for all, many aspects of the game need to change!

But "Nerfing" is not the answer.

This whole Crafting change is SOE's attempt to balance weapons and armor with the rest of their forthcoming "Combat Balance"

Currently Kryat dragons can be killed by 3 characters grouped "a Rifleman, Commando and a TKA" Should this be possible?? No way.. but it is because of what SOE has given us! Too correct this oversite on their part! They conclude that "Nerfing" all crafting can change this. Indeed it will but the problem isn't us (the players). We are just using what SOE has given us!

In SWG a TKA a Rifleman and a Commando are walking through the dessert. They happen upon a Kryat Dragon. They look at each other and smile "Lets kill it" The rifleman picks a spot 60m away and sets up. The commando pulls out his flame thrower and closes in with the TKA at his side. The dragon is sleeping lying on its side. They're set, the TKA is 2m away the commando 3m. All 3 of them fire at the same time. The dragon rolls over and hears something "Squish" It stands up looks at its side and see's another "wet" spot on its scales! "Geez" it thinks to itself! "Will these ants never learn?" It gets up takes about 7 steps to where the Rifleman is firing from and steps on him and then curls up for its nap!

This is what should happen in SWG. Weaker weapons, armor or buffs is not the answer! Taking something away from someone who's had it for 8 months just makes them "Mad".

SOE a long long time ago you posted that you had 300,000 players. Do you still? If you do then by all means push this through. If not and you want to maintain and actually build your player base! Listen to your players. I agree a revamp of borked and broken profs is in order.

If you Actually and truelly believe in this game as we Players do! Then stop adding sweet little dressings. Oh Joy we get 2 new mounts! YAAA Personally I would rather still be on footwith no mounts, no vehicles, no cities if it meant that100% of your efforts went into"Fixing" not "Nerfing" this game!

The GCW is dead! Bases are too easily destroyed and mean nothing anyway! There is still armor decay in PvP. The crackdown made it easier to harvest FP's for rebels. Warping, items disappearing, the Armor hole!!!! Too many bugs to mention.

Specials that should be weapon Specific not Skill specific! I love this one "EyeShot" with a "SCATTER" pistol oh ya!!

"EyeShot" yes with a very accurate, single shot pistol! with a scatter get real! Thats the problem with Combat profs! Specials that don't make sense! Balance the special to the weapon, then the weapon to the Profession.

Do Not nerf the weapon by Nerfing Crafting. Your using Crafting as a scape goat!! to help make it easier to balance everything else. Your logic that this Crafting change will help stabalize a "Borked" economy is sheer Fantasy!

Ask the players what needs fixing, what needs changing! Don't assume that because this is your game (which it's not! Remember WE pay your salaries) that you think you know everything! There is talent here that Boggles my mind! Player talent that is!! Why not Hire 50 people that play currently and actually have them play no programming no reports just play. Then sit down with them and TALK about whats wrong and needs fixing tweaking (No nerfing) I bet after just talking to them! actually sitting down and Talking to them you would have more insite into this game than any current programmer has!!

This game still has the possibilities of being the GREATEST MMORPG of all time!! Please don't let your short sightedness and propensity for quick fixes (read nerfs) destroy it!

forgive my spelling errors please!

<scottish voice>

THESE CHANGES, THEY'RE CRRRRAP!

I don't understand the leap of logic that allows you to believe this can be solved by reducing Experimentation effectiveness and increasing theimportance or resource quality. The explanation doesn't add up.

Buried as usual.

i am probably not going to say a lot that hasn't been said before. Nonetheless, I do think some things need clarifying.

One of the statements you made was that this was an effort to fix a broken economy. I read this statement by devs and players and honestly wonder, what do you mean? How does this manifest itself? I am no pollyanna, so I do understand the gist of what you are saying, but I don't see where the economy is incredibly broken. There are wide disparities among players. Some are very rich while others struggle. For the most part this is a reflection of the amount of time invested in the game and choices made. We certainly don't want a game where everyone has an equal amount of cash (what would be the point). So stratification is not to be unexpected. The biggest problems in the economy (to me) seem to be credit/resource/faction point duping and mission exploiting. None of these have anything to do with crafting. How will this fix the economy?

A lot of people complain about barriers to entry. "How can I compete against a long time crafter?". Simply put, you can't. And you shouldn't. A crafter who has logged months in the game should be better than you. This does not mean that you will never be better than her. After putting some time in, stockpiling resources and learning your market, you will be able to compete. It will not happen overnight. I opened a weapons shop in January. This follows a 2-3 month period of collecting resources. I am competitive with any MWS on the server. Bria is a big server, so it is no small feat. And resource spawns are frequent enough so that if you collect resources for a 2-3 month period, you too will have 85-90% of the resources that a master crafter has (in numbers not quantity). So the only real barrier to entry is time. What is wrong with that?

I disagree that this will create more variety. One of the first guides I read about weaponsmithing was that lowering HAM costs was very important. But my experience is that the tradeoff between HAM lowered and damage lowered is not worth it. Damage increases by so much more than HAM is dropped, it isn't worth experimenting on unless you have already maxed damage. It might make more sense if the other lines were really worth experimenting on. If one experiment point dropped HAM by 10 points across the board, that would be worth it. But 1 HAM decrease as opposed to 5-20 damage increase is a no brainer. There is a reason people ignore those stats. They just don't mean that much. This change will only increase uniformity. To create more variety in crafted goods, you would have to overhaul all of the schematics.

You state that one of your goals is to give players more options and more to think about when purchasing items. As both a merchant and a buyer, I can tell you that nothing is more discouraging than the vast wastelands on many planets. I can trigger the planetary map and visit vendor after vendor with empty shelves. One of the biggest problems with merchants is that there are too many. Most of these are people ho got mechant in their holo, so they set up an empty shop advertising whatever is hot. After going from shop to shop, I usually stick with people who show some dedication to their craft. If I find a good chef/architect/resource seller, I am not likely to look much farther because it is not worth my time. Let's face it. I would bet $1000 that most combat types would trade variety for a reliable supply any day of the week. Most of them doan't want to be bothered with shopping around. To them it's a nuisance that gets in the way of hunting. Why make them do more of what they don't want to do already?

A lot of other relevant ground has already been gone over several times. The pre nerf market. Established crafters with resource stockpiles. The widening of the gulf between novice and master crafters. Combined with the rest of what I have written, I can see no way, shape or form that this will fix the economy and help bring play balance. If anything, this will skew play balance even more. Novice crafters will lose heart and give up. Legacy crafters will either make a fortune in the pre nerf market or abandon the game altogether. Many people who are in the middle will have to reexamine whether it is worth continuing or not. I don't have the time or space to build up a huge inventory of weapons. Eventually I will either have to try to sell craptacular weapons or just drop out.

Ultimately, it is your game and you can do whatever you chose. If your intent is to fix the economy, this is a poor start. A more effective tactic would be to ban dupers and other cheaters. We have one guy on our server who has been banned 9 times and is so proud of it, he puts that in his sig. This guy was a notorious duper. If he can flaunt the rules so successfully, what message does that give me?

If however, your intent is to purge the ranks of crafters, this is an excellent start. Many are fed up with the way our opinions and feedback have been consistently ignored. Anything that is critical is considered to be just negative. Anything supporting is boosted. This is not an environment for communication. It is merely a way to get just enough reassurance that what you are doing is right that you can condone it. Look through the posts here. Take a gander at the weaponsmith forum. The overwhelming reaction is negative. And when the combat classes realize they can't get 3k buffs, uber composite armor, amazing vaserian brandy and a BA T21, they will be angry. This is the first ripple. go through with this and expect a tidal wave afterwards.

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JustG wrote:

Howdy...

Thanks for the feedback thus far.

I would ask that you try to keep the emotional responses out of it... that has no effect other than to make us skip that post. I really appreciate the rational replies.

We are still reading... and thinking about this.

- g

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