Development Cycle Archive

My oh my, you really dont have any idea of what you are talking about do you? And thats not suprising either as it seems many of the best posts of why this new system is flawed were removed from the boards by the moderators. Anyway Ill try to explain why you are wrong.

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Chrysalide wrote:

Greetings everyone,


The driving force behind a change to a fundamental system of this magnitude is the current state of the game economy. To put not too fine a point on it, the game economy is in poor shape. There are a few factors that contribute to the detrimental condition of the economy, and we are reviewing and assessing them all. Of these factors, one of the most significant is the ability for many crafters to easily maximize the attributes of items and equipment through experimentation.

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.

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This one is quite the joke. Please visit any of the trade forums (why not eclipses) and take a look at resource auctions and you will see that people are willing to pay enormous prices for good resources. What does this tell you?

What it tells me is that there are certain old resources that people are willing to pay massive ammounts of money for because they are indeed making better items than anyone else with them. Even more so the prices of these resources are often so high that it is impossible for a new crafter to get really into the market for several months. With the new system crafting will be even more dependant on high quality resources AND skilltapes. Since both these are VERY expensive things (I think there are max 10 or so master armorsmiths with 12 points on eclipse probably less) it will be more difficoult to enter the market not easier.

And truth be told in a year from now everyone will have the same resources anyway simply because we mine so much resources that we cant get rid of them. I have millions upon millions of the best resources ever on the server in my storage that only gets bigger and bigger for every new great resource. What you really need to do here is bring the harvesters down in line again so that we cant mine as much as we do now.

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The primary goal of this change is two-fold. We want to take the first steps in rebuilding the economy, and we want to redefine the crafting game within Star Wars Galaxies. By having resource quality play a more significant role in the experimentation process, the focus should be shifting away from trying to make an item with maximum attributes and minimum encumbrance. We would like to encourage players to carefully choose where to spend their experimentation points, especially when using lower quality resources. For example, do you want to craft a faster weapon with higher damage but with heavier special move cost, or do you want a slower, less powerful weapon that is very easy to use? Do you want armor with higher resists and heavier encumbrance, or less protective armor that even the weakest person can use? Or do you want a general purpose item that is not especially strong in any area, but not weak in any area either? And after this, consumers will need to decide what types of equipment will best suit their playing styles.

We believe that the introduction of items with a wider variety of attributes will be a step leading to the leveling of the playing field between crafters. And hopefully, this will lead to an increase in competition between crafters. Keep in mind that with this change comes a paradigm shift of sorts. We are aware that in most cases, items that will be crafted after Publish Seven will not have attributes as high as items created pre-publish. But still, I have seen some cases in which the heavier dependence on resource quality in this publish has resulted in items with higher attributes than are currently on Live.


Most sincerely,

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Had you actually played the game you would know that the only thing that is really important for a weapon is the damage after that it is speed and the rest are just bonuses. The same is becomming increasingly true for armorsmiths. As buffs get more predominant the focus has entierly shifted from HAM to resists, sure if you find an armor with better HAM and the same resists you are probably going to buy that one but if you have to choose between HAM and resists 80% of the population will choose resists.

The result is that at least for weaponsmiths and armorsmiths these crafting changes are the absolute oposite of what you are saying. Weaponsmiths will ONLY experiment their damage line, there wont be a single crafter ever doing anything else. Why is that so? Well its fairly easy, right now all weaponsmiths are first maxing their damage since that is the only really important stat and then they use the remaining points and try to make something unique with them. Since damage is the only important line they will continiue to experiment in it but this time they wont have any points left to use in other lines?

But why is damage so much better than any of the other lines? Firstly its because experimenting in damage increases the two main stats of the weapon that is both speed and damage. The increase is also fairly significant while the increase in accuracy or HAM is to low to be viable.

For armorsmiths things get a little more complicated, we actually used to experiment in different lines to try and find the perfect balance in one stage of our crafting, however wont be possible anymore.

What i would do was first i would bring the base resists of my layers up to 3% using 4 points, then i would raise the special protection high enough so that i could get 80% kinetic after that i would use the remaining 6-8 points in trying to get as low ham as possible. This will be a futile procedure nowdays as i wont be able to get a nearly as good a result. Instead everyone will just go for the standard "everything into resists" line.

All that said you have to realise that this change is NOT going to diversify the crafting profession actually it is quite the opposite. In order to really change that what you need to do is make the alternative experimentation lines more appealing. There wont be a single soul experimenting on condition unless you make it actually worthwile to take a point from damage and use it elsewhere.

I would be really thrilled if it actually was so that it was viable to experiment in other categories but at the moment I have no idea what so ever what makes you think that this will happen. Please tell us why a weaponsmith should focus on anything but damage unless he wants to go broke.

Well, there is pretty much nothing I can say that has not been said already. I agree %100 with everyone who is opposed to this new system being put into place. As a Master Armorsmith & Master Weaponsmith, (I clearly enjoy crafting) I fear this change will make the crafting experiance even less fun...and as a video game...the more fun it has the better.

If this change does make it live, there is a very good chance I will cancel my account, there are many other games out there that do not pull the rug out from under me after being a loyal customer for 9 months.

Thank you...

I'm almost Master Weaponsmith, pennyless for continuous grinding (I couldn't sell my crap anyway), who will step into a market with Big Crafters with million of credits.

Now you give them another advantage forcing me to use all experimentation points on one branch.They can buy (if they don't already have them) skill tapes to receive a nice +20 in experimentation which will give them 2 more experimentation points, this will force me to remain the small fish, who can't afford a skill tapes so costly and who can't build items as good as theirs. Plus they will be able to use their old schematics for building hundreds of "old weapons"...

Thank you again SOE, nice move.

Here is a non emotional response to why the crafting nerf will not fix the economy.

I have 1 million + units of each of requierd resources to make advanced composite segments, and 1million plus of the resources needed to make sweet sweet kinetic layers that in the final product will make me a triple layered suit of advanced composite with 80% kinetic damage and 60% everything else. I got schematics out the ying yang. And the resources to use them.

Rough calculations work out to I can make 1000+ suits of 80% kinetic composite.

Once these changes go into effect, i will sell them at 500k to 1million each. they will sell. THey sell at 300k a suit NOW. I sell 20 suits a day when I stock up on it on my vendor.

I have then 1,000,000,000 (thats ONE BILLION) credits worth of schematics already made up, just waiting for this change to go into effect.

Ill be selling only 10 suits a week. JUST SO I CAN KEEP THE GOOD STUFF IN THE CIRCULATING ECONOMY FOR THE NEXT 100 WEEKS. Nearly 2 years.

Your options to stop this are as follows:

Delete my "horded" resources by accusing me of duping them (when all it takes is10 days on a 90% spot with 8 heavy mineral harvesters of the best quality) as you have done with several other people I know

Retro nerf all premade schematics, which would turn thunderheart not into a liar but into a provider of crappy advice when he told us, TOLD US, that the smart crafter would stock up on schematics now.

You havent nerfed the prenerf fwg5. SO option 2 aint happening. probably.

just thought id let you know what MY plans are. ANd I KNOW that i am probably only one of a thousand masters on Bria who are planning on doing the EXACT SAME THING.

I'm not sure this will achieve your desired results within the economy.

From this change,crafted item consumption,but not diversity, will increase.

I've been a crafter since retail release (hand-crafting powerups for the first months, running an 'powerup, weapon, stim, spice, armor' shop as merchant, and architect forthe past few months.

To focus first on the consumers. Purchasers care about 2 things almost exclusively....

1) is the shop stocked regularly (which has nothing to do with this)

2) is the item good in the single most important stat (haseverything to do with this)

For weapons and powerups damage is the sole overriding stat... combatters will go to any expense to get this. They will live with high ham cost or low durability as long as the damage is optimized. Damage is the single most requested powerup (easily 95% of those producedare the Max/MinDamage Muzzles, not action cost, mind cost, range mod, even a speed mod which could be argued to be better damage over time, nor any of the other hundred combinations). All new weapons will be aimed directly at the damage stat because it the easiest to understand, easiest to test, most clearly comparable and visibly beneficial stat on weapons. This blind focus (correct or not) may lead to frustration and increased down time.

For armor, effectiveness is the single driving stat. Ham cost , by whichmany people are only effected during the act of equipping the item, is easily bypassed with the use of food, slices and buffs. New armor will continue to be aimed at effectiveness for the same reasons (simply understood, tested, compared and benificial).

Similarly, almost all other crafted items are drivin by a single stat. Extraction rate wholely trumps hopper size in architecture. Stims will be aimed at effectiveness rather than quantity of uses.

I know that I'm generalizing, but inmy experience players optimize their strength for bursts and moments rather than judging and pacing over time. This This is especially evident inpvp wherepeak strength is required to gain an upper hand. Bounty hunting, an extremely popular profession, is characterized bytime-intensive stalking with a sudden peak of violent battle; the time invested will not be jeopardized by frugality where they sacraficed stim effectiveness for more stim uses.

Due to the general availability of credits, players will probably not mind the increased consuption and dependency on food, buffs and enhancements. Many of them routinely use some or all of these in combination, but casual players may feel this dependance as increasely cumbersome and over-complicated. It may cause loss of subscription among this group rather than the vocal power players.

Looking at the crafters, as explained above, the diversification of crafted items will not happen. New specialized or niche marketsare unlikelyopen in significant amount.

Stockpiled items (TH will never live down dropping that word, don't can him! we like him!) will be expended in time (possibly a long time).

The massive stockpiles of resources willnever be expended. The established crafters have hundreds of thousands of units; this continued hording will not decrease. An attentive mastercraftsman shouldbe able to sustain himself until the next qualityreplacement spawn (or trade/buy enough to get by).

I blame the developement of excessive resource inventory onfour things: the increased awareness of resource needs, the diversification and dabbling of many players into the mining business, lot sharing, and the flubbed and accidental implementation of architectural experimenation (harvester extraction rates are double what they should be). While lowering the extraction rates, shortening spawn time, harvester certifcation, or resouce decay over time *shudder* could help this, nonewould be popular.

Crafting will continue tobe hard to break into. Without months of resource collecting or substantial investment in resources, even a master crafter will have difficulty breaking into the open market. I see weaponcrafting followed by armorcrafting as the two most difficult and dominated professions. Casual players will have little hope in producing top quality or demanded goods in these fields,possibly not even marketable goods. This is terribly sad considering the uniqueness and depth of crafting within this game.

Experimentation enhancements (while lowered by the lootable crafting apron schematics and enhancement food) will still set apart the best items and may circulate only in the upper segments of the crafters.

The single largest monopoly breaker in crafting will continue to be voluntary retirement for whatever reason.

I hope this change doesn't deter casual players in both crafting and combat. It will certainly draw the upper tiercombatters back toward the populace (after item legacy is destroyed).

I'd like to encourage everyone to support thier local crafter and develop a business relationship with them.

Keh'Icoh - Ahazi

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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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Since my post with a good example of why this will have no effect on the economy was erased by your overzealous moderators, I'll keep it simple.

I've been here since day 1. Stuck through a lot of garbage done to this game. I've been on the wall since I opened my Jedi slot and realized how disappointing *that* is, so I made my main a crafter.

If this goes in, I'm out. Think of that as just one insignificant account lost if you want, but there are plenty more insignificant accounts just like me that are feeling the same way right now.

Peace.

I have to raise a bullsh*t flag on this one, you are taking one of the only fully functional, and easily understandable part of the game in order to adress a single "problem" that doesn't actually exist in the first place? What about warping when getting of of mounts? What about mounts dissapearing? What about fixing the PSG so it doesn't die in ONE fight? You spent all that programming time on this, when the combat balance could've been worked on, or getting wookiee armor to display right, or fixing the armor holes, or the problems with uncallable pets, of the fact that you cant trade in some mounts, or fixing the CM poison through walls, or what about stopping a base destruction while dead? Maybe fixing the problem of items dissapearing from my inventory, or credits dissapearing from my BANK. Perhaps you should take a step back and fix the problems that are around NOW, instead of introducing new problems into the game, only to be ignored to "fix" some new item that as of yet, has no reason to be fixed. thats just my 15$ a month, not my 2 credits.

Yes it is a run on sentence.

Okay the economy is in trouble. I've been trying to point that out for a long time. I'm not real happy with the response to this problem because it really doesn't address the core issue. Your economic model establishes a system where there are an unlimited number of monetary units. It's a recipe for disaster. If you were to place a value on your credits and use an actual inflationary model you would see that current credits should be a fraction of their starting value.

Unfortunately this is an apples/oranges argument you propose. The economy being the apple and the ability to craft quaility products being the orange.

Yes, the idea of the cookie cutter equipment is a problem but changing the experimentation lines to adjust the is not the onlyanswer. At some level there do need to be some changes made but I question this approach. Changes could have been made at many different levels to solve this problem but what I'm seeing is an approach that appears to take the easy way out. It's understandable that you want to keep things simple. There is alot less aggravation to that approach but the changes you present could be or should I say have been considered punitive by the playerbase. Many of the new crafters are having enough difficulty competing with legacy items that are no longer able to be made. The idea of making it harder to create items that are on par with this equipment is a tough and bitter pill to swallow.

Here are some alternatives that I really don't believe your crafting community would take issue with:

1. Frequency of certain resource spawnscould have been adjusted.

2. Percentages of the resource spawns could have been adjusted.

3. Fundamental changes to draft schematics which would place more emphasis on the entire stat line of resources.

I'll acknowledge that even the first twothese approaches have some problems. Spawns could be monopolized. The quality of gear would still generally be cookie cutter but then again most things made with shoddy resources are however with these changes most gear will continue to be similar but inferior to that which is presently crafted.There is alsoless emphasis on the skill of the crafter and more on the quaility of the resource.

Adjusting schematics however should be given strong consideration as it would definately make things far more customizable if high quailty resources were used as not just a basis for the whole item but for specific attributes as well. My background is in weaponsmithing.If I were to craft a projectile weaponshould the conductivity/quality or shock resistance/quality be used to experiment on durability?It would make more sense that shock resistance should be a primary factor in durability butas it stands now slug throwers use conductivity/quality to determine maximum statistics.

I'm sensing some circular logic here. You want to make it so that "Grand Masters" rule the markets. You want more variety in the quality of the goods that the players are making. The problem is that this change now makes creating quailty goods incredibly difficult and making marginal goods the norm. Most up and comming crafters will not have the opportunity to achieve "Grand Master" because their opportunities to earn the credits required to purchase the skill enhansing tapes/gear will be severely limited.

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caddelite wrote:

I disagree, the economywas just fine until new harvestors came out. This is what ruined theeconomy, not limiting what Master Crafters will be able to do after Publish 7. The changes put forth in Publish7 will only do one thing, hurt the new Masters. There are launch day miners like myself who have every "best of shift" resource, the changes being put in Publish 7 will only benefit the already filthy rich.

The only thing that is sincerely hurting the economy is over-mining of resources since you fools made Medium Harvestors with BER's of 10 and Larges with BER of 13's. The previous BER's were 4 and 7 respectily. What this did was allow middle class players to invest in Mediums and gave the upper class insane Heavies. The Mediums increased the number of resources that can be pulled out of the ground by 250% using Mediums and 85% using Heavies. Ideally, with 8 lots, you can pull enough of a resource, sans Instrusive Ore and Solid Petro for Composite armor to last any master crafter over a year. In short, supply has overwhelmed demand. Publish 7 will not create any more demand, it will ruin demand for new Masters who lack excellent resources.

What this harvestor change did was create a bigger rift between the already wealthy Masters and those who got in on the mining boon early. Those who sold early, made cash.. those who are holding, are getting burned. On our server, we had a 994 OQ Dolovite and 1000 OQ Diatium Copper. You CANNOT sell such a resource now for more than 5 cpu. These are KILLER resources for med components and Advanced Power Handlers. But you can't sell them for what they should be worth, because the resources were available to be mined on, I believe, every planet.

The desire of SOE to create, what you define, as a "damage/speed" based weapon or one low on "HAM" costs, is a joke. Any hardcore PVP knows with the BE Master Chef Foods + Master Doctor Buffs, you can spam the most draining specials with not even moving your HAMs. One of my other characters is a Master Rifleman. I make very excellent T21 rifles with a stock, 179-409 damage 7.4 speed. The Mind HAM cost on them is 105. Eating Canape and drinking Brandy, not even taking Muon, I can spam Advanced Strafe without either of my Health, Action or Mind pools moving at all.

The changes proposed in Publish 7 will not help those seeking "less HAM draining weapons". The ONLY important factors in weapons are Damage + maxxed out ideal range weapons with a damage slice at the master level of ANY combat profession. Ideal range is often ignored by most crafters since they do not realize that it doesn't matter how much damage your weapon can do or how fast it fires if it cannot hit the target. The Flame Throwers I sell have NO negative range penalities. Most other crafters sell non-stock Flamers with -54 Ideal Range. And they wonder why they feel Commando sucks so much, they bought a weapon that was not researched by hardcore PVP customers, like I have.

Items with a wider variety of attiributes are not needed. The only things you needed to fix in the crafting & experimentation system were the frequency of Critical failures, the deterimental affects of Moderate Successes and have Amazing Successes actually mean something.

Where you guys REALLY messed up in your game is having the playing community grind unwanted professions to obtain a FSC called a Jedi which is essentially a very weak combat and social player. Let's admit it, anybody would love to kill a Jedi. I've killed them myself, it is very entertaining to see them whine about getting killed since they spent so much time grinding to unlock this pathetic class. You do not see Jedi ANYWHERE in-game, being social players, leaders or participating in GCW battles. Jedi train in seclusion, hide from BH's and can be killed by a TEF from just pulling out their light sabre.

With so many players "grinding" to become a Jedi, you broke apart at of the social fabric of the game. Players either did three things, grind, not grind or level a Jedi. Two of the three created a very barren social enviroment froma role playing standpoint. Jedi I have elaborated on, but when you see even the most hardcore, feared factional PVP playing a flute in the Cantina because a Holocron told him to, to me, it just makes me laugh. I myself have not earned 1 xp towards unlocking a FSC Slot because every Jedi I know says not to bother, Jedi are weak and you can't do anything with them.

When most bought the game, the true, honest dream was to become a Jedi and have an impact in-game and within the player community. But this is not possible with a Jedi, because of the fusteration of grinding which causes you to lose A LOT of your player base, and don't kid us, re-activing cancelled accounts tells us you lost a big chunk of your paying membership.

Now with these emminant crafting changes on the horizon for Publish 7, nearly every crafter who is recently a Master or been one for a few months, struggling to keep up with quality products and uncutting other launch Masters, they're all screwed and they're going to quit. This will not be a boost to the economy has a whole, it will only benefit the already wealthy.

As for myself, I am a launch resource miner, have the best collection of resources on my server, produce the BEST across the board weaponsand am quickly closing in on 10 figures for the number of created I have amassed. I am VERY skilled when it comes to analyzing in-game economies and what you're doing with Publish 7 is going to be very bad, because it does not correct the CAUSES of the problems within the economy. The crafting and experimentation changes only influence the EFFECTS.

I have outlined two of the three CAUSES: over mining, the pathetic quest for the Jedi. The third is every multiple fusteration that has driven so many casual players from the game, class nerfs. The only one you did good on were Chefs. CH sucks, BH sucks, Commando sucks, Pistoleer sucks, Carbineer sucks. Tailor, Chef & BE have gotten slightly better, Architect hasn't changed much, DE seems to be looking good with Publish 7. So what rules? TKA/Fencer/Rifleman and Combat Medic for Combat and Weaponsmith and Armorsmith for crafting. You're killing off a lot of Weaponsmiths and Armorsmiths with Publish 7.

I dunno who are the Masterminds at Sony who are behind this immense destruction of a MMORPG that possesses SO MUCH POTENTIAL but you guys HAVE TO LEARN TO FIX THE CAUSES, NOT THE EFFECTS.

So solve the problem of over-mining, make the quest of Jedi worthwhile, the class of Jedi strong so that the class can be a social class and leave the damn crafting professions alone. They were not broken, only YOUR EXPERIMENTATION CODING was messed up. I do not play on TC but I sincerely hope that critical failures and moderate successes are a thing of the past. Otherwise, I'm not even going to both to sell the 100's of weapons and suits of composite armor I am currently producing on a scale I've never done before. I have more credits than I can even spend, I have no need to sell what I am making if weapons and armor will never be as good as they are now.

Your devs need to start developing like players, not devs. Your track history with this game have proven your devs are blatently wrong with just about everything change you make.Vehicles and new Chef foods are really the only two true wins for you guys. All the profession nerfs, the classes that still blow and have blown since launch, the weak game conduct (the Imperial Crackdown was more of an Imperial Letdown) and not to mention the incredible storage problems that many crafters are experiencing. If you WANNA HELP crafters, do as I have outlined on the WS, AS and Core Systems forum:

1) Allow "single stack" resources

2) Alllow factories to produce a single crate of 1000 items, the max allowed by all schematics.

These two changes alone will solve all of your alledged "database" problems and make EVERY crafter with their banks, houses and factories stuffed full of resources and God knows what else VERY HAPPY.

Remember, happy players pay for subscriptions, unhappy ones do not. Stop making players unhappy. Listen to them, give them what they want. SOE is taking a long road to making a sci-fi Asheron's Call 2.

Malfunction

Master Weaponsmith, Armorsmith - Radiant

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Chrysalide wrote:

The driving force behind a change to a fundamental system of this magnitude is the current state of the game economy. To put not too fine a point on it, the game economy is in poor shape. There are a few factors that contribute to the detrimental condition of the economy, and we are reviewing and assessing them all. Of these factors, one of the most significant is the ability for many crafters to easily maximize the attributes of items and equipment through experimentation.

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.

The primary goal of this change is two-fold. We want to take the first steps in rebuilding the economy, and we want to redefine the crafting game within Star Wars Galaxies. By having resource quality play a more significant role in the experimentation process, the focus should be shifting away from trying to make an item with maximum attributes and minimum encumbrance. We would like to encourage players to carefully choose where to spend their experimentation points, especially when using lower quality resources. For example, do you want to craft a faster weapon with higher damage but with heavier special move cost, or do you want a slower, less powerful weapon that is very easy to use? Do you want armor with higher resists and heavier encumbrance, or less protective armor that even the weakest person can use? Or do you want a general purpose item that is not especially strong in any area, but not weak in any area either? And after this, consumers will need to decide what types of equipment will best suit their playing styles.

We believe that the introduction of items with a wider variety of attributes will be a step leading to the leveling of the playing field between crafters. And hopefully, this will lead to an increase in competition between crafters. Keep in mind that with this change comes a paradigm shift of sorts. We are aware that in most cases, items that will be crafted after Publish Seven will not have attributes as high as items created pre-publish. But still, I have seen some cases in which the heavier dependence on resource quality in this publish has resulted in items with higher attributes than are currently on Live.

In reviewing the threads on this forum regarding this new change, I have seen a lot of intelligent testing and discussion going on. More than a few people have mentioned that "if it isn't broken, we shouldn't fix it". The point as we see it though is that the current system is broken, and does need to be fixed. We feel that this is a change needed for the long-term health and enjoyment of the game, and we wanted to provide and frank and honest explanation of our reasons behind its implementation.

As always, we welcome and will happily address your comments and questions.

Most sincerely,

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Best post EVER....

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caddelite wrote:

The only thing that is sincerely hurting the economy is over-mining of resources since you fools made Medium Harvestors with BER's of 10 and Larges with BER of 13's. The previous BER's were 4 and 7 respectily. What this did was allow middle class players to invest in Mediums and gave the upper class insane Heavies. The Mediums increased the number of resources that can be pulled out of the ground by 250% using Mediums and 85% using Heavies. Ideally, with 8 lots, you can pull enough of a resource, sans Instrusive Ore and Solid Petro for Composite armor to last any master crafter over a year. In short, supply has overwhelmed demand. Publish 7 will not create any more demand, it will ruin demand for new Masters who lack excellent resources.

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