Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Understanding the Crafting Experimentation Changes
Graison wrote:
Fyi as many others posted, If this goes thought I have 3 accounts of my own you can have back. I will not longer play this game.
Thanks, Graison, Kaison and Sinjion.
*OVER-GENERALIZATION ALERT*
If you have 3 accounts you're probably a power-gamer who tries to make his own little sub-economy because you don't like to deal with other players and like to min-max your way to riches by subverting the system instead of contributing to the galaxy-wide economy of other crafters. Removing yourself from the resource pool will help us all- so please, bu-bye!
*END OVER-GENERALIZATION ALERT*
Having said that, if you don't do this I apologize, but most people who have 3 characters can't help but play the game to screw the system over and ignore theACTUAL intent ofthe system.
darknacht wrote:
Do you think that any of those who say these changes are good follow that position because they are noble and altruistic? That they call for this hardening to cleanse the game and make it balanced and better because they know what is best for us all? Do you think they will destroy their stockpiles of resources, schematics, and crates of superior products to start with everyone in a new playing field? That they have no selfish motives whatsoever in this deception? Look closely.
In the not too distant future, we will log in to find we are playing the ultimately balanced game that results in such a driven frenzy....we will be playing checkers. TH's illustration of a checker in describing a recent proposal to the droid community is ironic, for it seems that this is what this game will become when all the life is squeezed from it.
Believe it or not, some of us think the devswho get to see the inner-workings of the game know better how to fix things than the general populace of vocal players. I think the BIGGEST things that gets this game in trouble are:
1. The loud minority of hardcore gamers.
2. The power-gaming segment of multi-account holders.
3. Holocrons. Damn them and their holo-grinding economy ruining effects.
Sometimes we just DO NOT see the big picture until we're immersed in it, and some of us here are too stubborn to admit that we DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHAT'S BEST. It's a virtual world - what's good for one group (and those of us here DO respresent a minority I believe, and we do tend to be just ONE part of the population) is not always good for the rest, we all know this. In the end it's not the devs who get me frustrated about this game, it's YOU GUYS. You want to keep the status quo because it works to a degree, but you cannot see beyond the current valley to the next peak. I'm not saying THIS is the solution, but it's a step towards where it SHOULD be going, and I fear the general player base will not be tolerant enough to allow things to evolve.
'Nuff said from me tonight, I'm frustrated with humanity at the moment.
Voltok wrote:
My two sense.. I'm not a crafter, I'm a PvPer.. So when I heard about this "patch" I went and bought spares and spares for my spares of my armor, the food I use, the buff packs my doc uses, the weapons I use so that for the foreseeable future I won't need to buy any of the new items.
Not particularily sure how this will help the economy, since I have no doubt most every other PvP or PvE character with money will do exactly what I did, which basically means the economy will be dead for a few months...
The people that will be buying the new items are the less rich players and newer players, who will then go and try PvP against those of us with money who stocked up, and they will be likely be slaughtered left, right and center..
Their armor will be inferior, they'll probably be buffed by inferior packs, they'll be using weapons with much less accuracy, damage or speed, with the higher ham costs on their armor and weapons and the lower quality buff packs they'll die sooner in a fight, and the food they can use to enhance their minds will be of lower quality.
So all this will do is give the rich players a brutally nasty edge over the poor players and new players...
So, to conclude: Economy takes a hit, all poor players and new players get to deal with pre-nerf Acklay stun batons, Krayt Ion Rifles and Genoshian Blasters ripping into their lower quality armor while they return fire with peashooters..
Food for thought G...
That is a very good point, not only the new crafters will be dead. New players period will be dead. I just read the game spy review from one of the gamespy editors who said he quit cause of how badly he got killed in PvP. All new players will feel like him if this patch goes live. that is the main problem. This will not in any way produce a uniform nerf. It will just cause the gap between the haves and have nots to grow.
And when your subscriber base is shrinking drastically you need new blood. you won't get much long term new blood when their first month exists of telling them how they are always going to such because they don't have the old stuff. Unless of course they want to pay millions to but it (which they won't have since they are new).
Nerfs are bad because it shows a flaw in the development process. But sometimes they are necessary. But an uneven nerf kills the game. Period. That is why this change is so horrible.
Quinnt13 wrote:
I responded in this thread 24 pages ago, so I'm not going to dwell on what's been said in the 24 pages since...suffice to say, there are a ton of great viewpoints, and I daresay that many of us have a more extensive business/economic background than the SOE dev team would. But I have to say in partial defense of the dev team, creating an economy, whether real or virtual, is an extremely difficult thing to do. It depends on so many factors, that one cannot possibly predict how it will work. This game attempted to do something that was mostly heretofor unheard of...create an economy based totally on the players. Everything that is used in this game (and I say "used" because loot drops frankly suck) is created by players. Everything. With a player base of over 100k (or whatever the number is now), it is to be expected that things won't work in some areas. Creating a "perfect" economy isn't possible. Nor should it be...perfect competition does not exist in the real world, but I won't digress into more economic theory.
I think the basic message here is that while the economy may be broken, it is not because the crafting system is broken. The root of the cause is the inflow of money into the game greatly exceeds the outflow. Consider the US Federal government as an example: Money comes in to the economy when needed, via Federal Reserve Banks, and leaves the economy (in theory) from taxes paid to the government. Now, it's obviously not really this simple, but you get the idea...the basic John Q. Taxpayer has a nice money sink in his own wallet, in the form of taxes, food, housing, etc. We don't have that in this game, save for a weak maintenance requirement that anyone can meet by running 2 missions once a week. And that's if you choose to own a house...which you don't actually need unless you want it. One poster said he had enough resources and schematics stockpiled to make full suits of armor for something like 2 years...and that he could sell them collectively for over 1 BILLION (with a "B") credits over that time. You will be creating a more monopolistic economy, and that benefits nobody except the monopoly.
I said it 24 pages ago: the crafting systemin this game is a work of art. Please don't change it just for the sake of change, or because you think it's causing the rampant economic inflation in the game, because it isn't. Hundreds of posts on this subject have explained what the true problems are...the combined experience of all these players must be in the hundreds of thousands of hours at this point. You lose nothing by at least delaying this change for a month. At the very least, it gives all of us time to have a roundtable discussion as to how to really fix the problem.
KylaEri wrote:
The experimentation change is obviously a way to a). control the economy and b). stop the creation of uber weapons.
That's how i see it, and i don't have a problem with it. Established crafters are not going to go broke with this change. newbies will have some difficulty making quality weapons though, thus affecting there income.
Experimentation isn't going to effectively change or stop the creation of Uber weapons... For the most part damage will stay the same... Just no points will be spent on anything else. A couple of the more popular weapons will drop 5-20 point in max damage... But when I have people handing me 100-150 max damage Krayt tissues....
But really... Is it really the weapon damage that is the root cause? What about buffs? Gettign buffed and spaming last ditch all day (6 x damage), or using fanshot and gettign free damage when corpses starts dropping?
I am a master pistoleer/master weaonsmith with a little bit of medic and scout... WIthout any buffs (doctor, food or spice)and wear an Ubese set of armor with less than 120 encumb... I struggle with perleks on Lok. Regardless of whether I use my normal pistol or my Krayt one. With other extra 100 max damage, it helps a little, but not a lot. Toss in some food a spice perleks become easy. Add in doctor buffs and my composite that I can onyl wear with buffs... I just walk in and fanshot everything and the lair and don't care how many get into HtH or stack up on me! Heck with doctor buffs, food and spice I solo in the Geno caves... Withou buffs I wouldn't even live more than a couple of seconds after entering the cave!
Right now an extra 5-30 damage removed or added to weapons only have a very small effect, more effect off course than HAM reduction or ideal range because they ultimately have multipliers applied... Some % for slice, some % for powerup and some factor for specials... So in the end 1 damage point maybe become 7 or 8 points... But if you remove the ability to constantly spam specials, that 1 point only become at best 1.7 points of damage...
there are still pre-nerf FWG5 pistols for sale on bria.
all im going to say, besides dont do this.
jefmes wrote:
Believe it or not, some of us think the devswho get to see the inner-workings of the game know better how to fix things than the general populace of vocal players. I think the BIGGEST things that gets this game in trouble are:
1. The loud minority of hardcore gamers.
2. The power-gaming segment of multi-account holders.
3. Holocrons. Damn them and their holo-grinding economy ruining effects.
Umm, and who gave the game the Holocron problem to begin with? It wasn't "The loud minority of hardcore gamers" now was it? No. I believe it was "the devswho get to see the inner-workings of the game" and who "know better how to fix things". When you say "Holocrons. Damn them and their holo-grinding economy ruining effects" , you can't be blaming that on the Devs, can you? I mean, they do know the inner workings of the game and couldn't possibly have erred. Thought not.
1. The loud minority of hardcore gamers.
2. The power-gaming segment of multi-account holders.
3. Holocrons. Damn them and their holo-grinding economy ruining effects.
Sometimes we just DO NOT see the big picture until we're immersed in it, and some of us here are too stubborn to admit that we DON'T ALWAYS KNOW WHAT'S BEST.....<snip remaining text>
________________________________
So do we endure change in the hopeful wish that it will all work out in the end? Do we accept that the developers know best and we as players should not voice our opinion? On the contrary, the developers know that this crucible of player dialog, even from the 'loud minority', sometimes yields the ultimate answers. It is the reason why this forum exists.This is the time to speak...for those who agree and don't agree. It is the way humans compromise and come to a decision.
I have played every major game of this type and have serious concerns when this 'balance quest' is the primary agent for change in the monthly patches. This concept hasn't had enough thought given to it. Premature change is a greater sin than no change at all. Respectfully, to borrow your term, 'believe it or not'...I love this game as much as you, and just because we don't agree,doesn't lessen our respective regard for it.
jefmes wrote:
fanboi crap
Likaeus wrote:
jefmes wrote:
Believe it or not, some of us think the devswho get to see the inner-workings of the game know better how to fix things than the general populace of vocal players. I think the BIGGEST things that gets this game in trouble are:
1. The loud minority of hardcore gamers.
2. The power-gaming segment of multi-account holders.
3. Holocrons. Damn them and their holo-grinding economy ruining effects.
Umm, and who gave the game the Holocron problem to begin with? It wasn't "The loud minority of hardcore gamers" now was it? No. I believe it was "the devswho get to see the inner-workings of the game" and who "know better how to fix things". When you say "Holocrons. Damn them and their holo-grinding economy ruining effects" , you can't be blaming that on the Devs, can you? I mean, they do know the inner workings of the game and couldn't possibly have erred. Thought not.
Instead of changing the way experimenting works why not change what we experiment on?
For example, right now if I want to increase the min/max damage of a weapon I'm making I can do that by experimenting on just one line. What if damage experimentation was expanded to a 2 line formula, one line for min damage and one for max damage???Tweak the bang for the buck you get for experimenting in this new fashion so that 5 points dedicated to min damage and 5 points dedicated to max damage would result in a weapon with properties similar (albeit probably a bit lower) to "today's weapons".Code indiminishing returns for spending more than those 5 points (don't make it worthless to do so however) and you might have something acceptable.
I'm sure that the same reasoning can apply to all crafting professions. Change the attributes that we're allowed to experiment on and you go a long way toward increasing item diversity by giving crafters more viable experimenting choices.