Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Crafting Experimentation Changes... resolution.
Article57 wrote:so is this gonna be the new design model for the SoE dev team?
everytime you feel you need to make game changes in the name of balance and a handful of people whine and threten to quit you're gonna back out and evoke the "it just wasnt fun" mantra?
pitiful.
I counted 35 pages of responses, overwhelmingly negative, to the 'explanation' of the change. Hardly a handfull. I'm glad this is being backed out; the huge numbers of pre-nerf items would have fundamentally changed the dynamics of the economy. If the devs had done this in such a way that the quality if weapons and armor would stay about even or slightly increase then it would have been a good thing and people would have been happy. But, in a game where everyone reaches the cap as quickly as SWG, you can't nerf people or skills without really, really alienating people.
Basically, by creating a game that you win after three weeks, they've painted themselves into a corner.
I'm happy that they are not going ahead with the nerf!
I also think any chef that was for this change does not understand it very well, play with it today and you we will how much it would have crippled us.
Dev Team,
Shame on you for lacking the courage to stand your ground before the boisterous voices of the few and the overly vocal; the powergamers that have been killing Galaxies since Beta 3 was opened to them. To FFXI, WoW, or wherever with them, their $14.95 a month, and their hundreds of millions (billions?) of farmed credits which are the reason the economy's destroyed in the first place.
Remember, even with the most liberal of numbers, only 10% of a program's users ever post to the forums.
::in a boisterous voice, since it's the only thing Devs seam to hear:: LEAVETHE CHANGES IN AND LET THE POWERGAMERS OUT!!!
Ubers may begin their flames here, as if I give a carrion spat's tailfeather about what they have to say...
Where the hell were all you supporters when they announced this? Tonight I will decide if this patch was going to be good or bad for me.
I'm guessing we let something good for crafting slip by. Was looking forward to the extra amazing results with my uber resources.
another "cry baby" victory 
wtg guys, you are killing the whole game by your whines. i'm sorry for you devs, but if you don't get the balls to apply the necessary changes to the game , u can considerate SWG will be the next MMO greatest wreckage after AC2.
I really could have cared less whether the change took place or not even tho I'm about to master Doctor for my own use and guilds needs not a holo grind. It's the reasoning behind it. here are many other ways to get money to get into the hands of people other than the uber smiths. Whey not just dump the holo grinds to begin with. People making a small investment in buffs and then running to dantooine to master TKA in a few days power missioning Pikets at 9k a mission have so much money to put into the economy it's not funny. They run to buy the uber amour and send numerous tells to those of us who really didn't care about he upcoming change to buy a bunch of this, buy a bunch of that before you can't anymore. I'll lend you money blah blah blah.
Sorry to hear that the changes aren't going to stay. I was hoping to finally see something other than high end stuff on every dang vendor for prices that are only set to compete with their neighbors at 100% markup. Sometimes, actually often, many people need something a bit less than high end but then I don't enjoy spending four hours running from planet to planet just trying to find vendors that 'might' carry something a bit different.
I will admit, it's nice to see the developers taking a look at the general feedback and acting on it. That, in itself, makes the tedious task of looking for items a bit better.
--Cardo
For example, Chrysalide wrote:
Our main concern centered around the fact that with most master crafters all making the best equipment possible, there is very little variety on the market. It seemed to us that there were almost no hard decisions to be made during the experimentation process by the crafter, and none to be made by the consumer when purchasing these items. When a majority of the equipment on the server is top of the line, there is very little reason for customers to seek out new sellers, and new vendors find it difficult to break into the business.
Chrysalide is fundamentally wrong about what's going on in the economy.
No real trade-offs First, the main reason products tend to wind up the same is not because its too easy to reach the max, its because there really ISNT a meaningful tradeoff in the schematics. With weapons, for example, DOT is everything. Nobody is going to buy a weapon with inferior DOT. Nobody. So of COURSE weaponsmiths max out DOT and end up at the same place. Once they've done this, they tweak other attributes with the remaining skill points and create a degree of variance. The nerf would not have changed the imperative to max out DOT, but rather it would mean that a WS had to use ALL of his experimentation points to max it out. Variation would decrease, not increase. There ARE meaningful tradeoffs in armor and - guess what - armorsmiths DO make different kinds of armor: several distinct kinds of ultra-heavy armor you can only wear if you're buffed, plus several distinct kinds of lightweight armor that, with a good slice, you can wear without buffs.
The gating factor is resources + Skill Tapes.Chrysalide is also fundamentally wrong about why it is difficult to become established as a crafter. The first reason is, in fact, the necessity of obtaining high quality/rare resources. Making crafting more dependent on resources makes it harder for noobs to break into the marketplace. In addition, this patch would have placed a HUGE premium on skill tapes. There is no way a weaponsmith or armorsmith could compete, under these changes, without +20 worth of tapes (steet cost 10-20 million).
Logistics is everythingThe major issue is that the marketplace favors crafters or consirtiums of crafters who can keep a full range of products stocked. If you can keep a vendor stocked with top-quality Composite or Ubese armor people will beat a path to your door... and empty out your vendors overnight. This is because nobody has the time to check out a succession of empty vendors scattered across an entire planet. The crafters who win in the marketplace are those who can consistently keep their vendors well stocked with top-quality products so that people KNOW they will find the products they seek.
You can't nerf durable goods. For goods like armor and weapons that have a long lifetime, you can't nerf them or you change a crafting-based economy into a legacy-based economy which is dominated by trading for items that are no longer available. Eventually they work their way out of the system, but this takes a LONG time. For example, in preparation for the nerf, I bought 11 suits of armor and 50 weapons. I probably won't buy weapons or armor for a year or so... so just by threatening the nerf you've damaged the economy.
You can't nerf a static game The final factor is one that the people revamping combat need to really digest: In a game where everyone is static and noboy gets better at anything after a few weeks, you can't nerf people. Nobody wants to play a game where progress is more backwards than forward.
ProteusLeafdew wrote:
and now letting the changes go thru for a day u ruin the economy again by allowing people to make a few uber items that can't be reproduced like higher ber harvesters, armor parts , crafting tools and stations, and weapons that people will likley charge crazy prices for
I thought this patch was a nerf by your own guys arguments.
A nerf doesn't allow you to make better stuff, does it ?
Or could all those people against the patch have been wrong ?
You can't have your cake and eat it....