Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Understanding the Crafting Experimentation Changes
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3.) Make experimentation ramp vs. schematic complexity:
Currently complexity only affects how long it takes me to make something if I'm a master (this isn't a truism in terms of the game logic, but it is a de-facto truism in the SWG crafter's world). Make complexity count for something! This solves the problem of non-masters not being able to compete with masters.
This will help with the view of seeing all boxes sans master being worth anything. Let's say if a schematic's complexity is 20, and my current assembly/experimentation skill is at a 60 (I'm not a master yet, but about halfway) then I should be able to produce this weapon at close to master level.
Allow me to provide an example:
The Scout Blaster can be made at FireArms 1. Its complexity is 21. So let us say that once I hit an experimentation of +42 then I should be able to "unlock" the full experimentation for this weapon.
This last idea is still a little fuzzy in my head as well, but I hope I was explicit enough to at least convey a general idea.
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I agree!!! It may be fuzzy in your head but I want to see this!
HandCrafted 
If they do take these changes live, the following should happen:
Increase skill attachment loot drops for experimentation
and
Increase the quality of resource spawns. In paticular the ones that are specific to a schematic.
I would personally rather see the NPC and creatures get tougher than the players getting weaker.
mawgspawn wrote:
ALso in replay to 2 of Micco30's questions about vindars post (not that I am attempting to speak for vindar)
1.We will have to put every point ino one line of experimentation to get the SAME results we are getting now in that line with fewer points spent now. Every test result I have seen from test center, from the various corrospondents and other individuals shows this. It will not result in better results within that line.
Ok, that wasn't clear from some of the text that St.Gabe provided. Thanks!
2. I have not heard about the med pack tests you are refering to. In fact i have read several medical threads that state just the oppisite, with numbers that seem to back the asseertions up. Sorry to say I do not have links to these therads, but there were 2 in the Core systems page and 1 or 2 in the Master Doc, CM page.
I wish I could verify that too, but that might be more heresay based on the broadranging discussions now going on about "gated" resources. I wouldn't bet the farm that I am correct on this issue. I'm just trying to figure it out.
ALso, My original post was simply to point out that the dev's idea that there will not be pre-nerf items in the economy after a copuple months is incorrect. ALso to point out that, as many others have said, the disparity between starting crafters and older masters will only become even greater. Especially becasue the resource market (nearly destroyed by the hologind effect (different conversation i know but relevent to this all the same)) as it now stands will only reinforce the inability of new poor crafters to get the quality resources which will be the only thing that allows you to differentiate your product from any other.
No disagreement or question that this is a top issue.
I mean whats the point fo getting triple layered composite armor with LOW ham stats if the results are worse than decent chitin or Ubese, which is much much lighter anyway? There will never again be an armorsmith who tries to fill the low encumberance need for armor, as it will be a pointless venture. This will only create an even greater need for doctor buffs of the strongest type and drugs in order to SIMPLY engage in combat at all on any kind of equal footing.
Again, not being an Armorsmith, I'm not sure on this one, but I don't see too many people advertising low HAM suits, only high resist suits. Of course, I don't play on every server either I don't even pretend to know the value of each. It's just my observation, based on conversations with friends in game (some of whom are armorsmiths) that resists are THE thing most people look at when buying a suitof armor.
And it will make the really good quality items event hat more expensive becasue they will be so much rarer. And the resources that are needed that are any good will now go through the roof in price. I pay 10 to 20 credits a unit (when I have to buy) for crap colat iron or bronzium iron now. I know people who have had to pay 50 credits a unit. And thats before the change. This change will only take the extremes of our economy and strach them further apart, by a large margin.
Aye, another huge concern for me is how much it will cost me to get the items that I need to make the advanced weapons. The optional weapon upgrades may, againMAY,also increase in price. That could hurt my upper end sales if i cant get a hold of some of the unique weapon upgrades that everyone has.
As always, thanks for trying to clear this up for me. I'm getting there
JustG wrote:
Still reading...
Still thinking...
- g
* still praying hard the dev don't screw up thecrafting system*
I'm still puzzled a bit about just how this crafting change will actually effect the economy. As I understand it, for a player to cover all the same bases he will need a wider selection of crafted products. Maybethree guns where only one is needed now. Maybethree suits of armor where one is needed now.
So basically, a combatant who does missions for a living is going to need to spend more of his hard earned money to maintain the same results he sees now. And he'll be paying that extra money to the crafters (crafters who already have more money than God, have run out of things to spend thier money on, and are basically the skewed end of SWG's blown-out economy).
How does increasing the operational costs of the working man (by requiring more purchases from the already rich supplier) better SWG's economy?
Chrysalide wrote:
Greetings everyone,
We are very aware that with the introduction of the modifications to the experimentation system in Publish Seven, quite a few questions have arisen and understandably so. The foremost and majority of these are curious as to why this change was implemented. We will do our best here to respond to your concerns, and to explain our reasoning behind moving forward with this change.
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.
If you make it so I have to spend 10 points on the bar that matters most to the consumer I will spend all my points on it, and every crafter will do the samehence creating all items the same with no variety at all between crafters.
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.
Best equipment? Almost a year after release, there is no indication as how a higher rating crafting tool and stationhelps creating a betteritem. Care to elaborate on this plz?
You are correct about there are no hard decisions made by the crafter. A crafter will always max the attribute that matters most no matter how many points he/she has to spend doing it. By making crafters spend all their points in the stat which matters more on the item you are making every crafter craft an identical item (no variety).
You are correct that consumers dont have a choice when it comes to items becausethere is always an attribute that matters the most.Effectiveness on armor will always be more important than its encumbrance (higher resist will absorb more damage, less chance of cloning). Healing stat on a stim pack will always be more important than charges per stim (better healing per charge so less mind pool use, less chance of cloning). Damage/speed, since on the same bar of experimentation will always be more important than HAM (everyone is buffed anyway), Range (wont even go there), and durabilty (buy another).
New crafters should have trouble breaking into the business. What is the challenge of a game where you can make the best item as soon as you hit master? It should take dedication and right resources to compete with the best.
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.
I agree resources needs to play moreon product quality. Resource quality should be important but by introducing this right now you are only creating a PRENERF market that will last 2-4 years.
I agree the focus shoudl change from crafting the same thing over and over again but that is simply how the devs released the game to be. Your example leaves me no doubt you dont play the game. As a weaponsmith I can tell you 99% of my tells asking for statson speed and damage, nobody asks whats themax range mod for a weapon cause it doesnt mattermuch.
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.
What variety? What you are doing is asking every crafter to spend all their points on the only stat that matters
One valid concern that has been raised with regards to this issue is that there are certain resources that are required for higher-end draft schematics that have capped qualities. For example, a certain item that has a dependency on conductivity might require Plumbum Iron as a resource component. The trouble with this being that ferrous metals, and specifically iron, will most always have poor conductivity (and realistically so). The perceived result of this is that any experimentation line that depends on conductivity can never be raised to an acceptable level. It is important to note that we are and have been aware of draft schematics like this. In such cases, we have artificially inflated the maximum values in the draft schematic for attributes that depend on the capped resources, so that the end result is in line with the expected values.
Perfect, that is the only way to not create a Pre nerf market.
That may be a little confusing to follow so I will try to explain a little better with an example. Very simply, say that you have a weapon, and we want the maximum damage for that weapon to be no less than 50, and no greater than 100. Say that experimentation for maximum damage depends on conductivity, and the schematic requires iron and aluminum. For the sake of argument, let's say that the iron conductivity is capped at 10% of resource maximum, and aluminum conductivity is capped at 90% of resource maximum. When these two resources are used in crafting the item, the maximum conductivity possible is averaged out to be 50%. With this in mind, we have set the range of values for max damage on this weapon to be 50 to 200. The result of this is that with the maximum conductivity possible with these hypothetical capped resources (50%) the maximum damage that can be achieved with this weapon is what we wanted it to be (200 x 50% = 100). These artificially inflated values are not new in Publish Seven; these have been around since the launch of the game. In short, it is a valid concern, but it is one that we have always been aware of, and took steps to address in the original implementation.
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.
Ifound Thunderhearts post suggesting every crafter should stockpile components/products before the change takes place completely unacceptable coming form a representative. You say the change will help new crafters while Thunderheart tells the old crafters to stockiple components. I cant find thunderheart's post anymore...
Most sincerely,
The resource quaility idea compensating some schematics with capped resources to go along with the change it great. Atm, the only variety that exists inproducts is the ability of the crafter tospend the extra points on other attritbutes. After the "crafting enhancement" we will have no extra points to make our products different from other crafters.
I played Asheron's Call 2 for quite some time, and I enjoyed the game immensely right up to the point when the developers started toning down the damage that players could do and ramping up the damage that monsters could take. In many ways, I see this Expermintation Change as being similar--a form of ersatz combat balancing geared toward making encounters last longer or cost the character more to finish them. The reason I quit AC2 is simple: My high level character no longer felt powerful, and the developers spent way too much time balancing characters down instead of beefing encounters up. Needless to say, many of us felt their focus on castrating characters took away from their focus on creating a content-heavy atmosphere that most people were paying them to create.
I can see a lot of players who are combat-oriented feeling like they've been neutered when they can only find lesser quality weapons and armor in their universe, at least lesser quality as compared to pre-patch.
I have no solution to the developers' worries about crafting not being competitive enough. I just know from experience that thepath they are pondering is, indeed, well-worn and financially unviable for a company like SOEto pursue. When AC2 started dumbing characters down because the developers hadn't balanced combat to begin with, I took off for what I thought would be a better environment, SWG.
If the patch goes through, then I will, after playing since the first day, be looking elsewhere,
Lupa Cha--Corbantis--Master Smuggler/Worried Twilek