Development Cycle Archive

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Vinaddar wrote:

The changes, as they are now on Test,will result in a few things happening:

1) Crafters will focus every point of experimentation into 1 line. Currently we can spend some on a second line on many items, this will be a thing of the past.

It has been stated that crafters will "focus" on a single experimentation line. Understood. Will that allow items to theoretically have an INCREASE in effectiveness under that line, assuming all other factors remain the same?

2) HAM costs will go up on crafted items

Understood. this would be a tradeoff related to using all experimentation points in one line. What is the approximate increase in HAM costs and how does this affect overall value? HAM costs can be offset by buffs and stat migration as I have seen numerous times with the current composite armor sets.

3) Condition will go down on crafted items

Again, understood as a tradeoff related to using all experimentation points in one line. How is the decrease in condition a negative effect if we want to create turnover of our merchandise? Does condition affect any other items on a product and how is this normally factored in by the buyer? As far as I can tell, condition is usually the LAST item that the buyer looks at, and instead focus on Resists and HAM.

4) The best crafted items post patch will be less than they are now from the same materials (800-850ish Enhance packs post-patch versus 920-950ish now, as an example).

I know I'm being a pain...but how? I've read reports from TC that indicate that just the opposite is occurring. The enhance packs and most other Doc and CM meds do not appear to have the amounts or frequency of "capped" or "gated" resource stats like Weaponsmith.

5)Us old-timers will dominate the market making life even harder on the newer crafters. You are contributing to the monopolies that already exist. Why? Because prices on decent to top quality items will skyrocket thus making the rich richer and resource hoarding will be worse than ever.

This is a HUGE concern for me. If i'm going to have to fight twice as hard, I want to make sure I go into the fray with some kind of advantage. At this point, it would appear that quality resources are my key in competiion with other crafters. But again, I'm confused by other statements that indicate that effectiveness may actually increase under the new system. What happens in that case? Is it all back to square one?

6) The Economy will not be improved, it will simply have a greater separation between the haves and have nots.

I guess it depends on what you mean by "improving" the economy? If you are looking to create money sinks, this looks like a sure fire way to do it. If you are talking about the disparity in money between classes and even within classes, I don't see that anything will fix that. I know in RL these same issues exist and we haven't found a good way to deal with them....well, Communism aside, but that has it's own problems

We were right when we said you were breaking CH, we were right when we said your initial idea for the Imperail Crackdown was too much, and we are right about this. This community has some of the most thoughtful and intuitive posters I have ever read on a game board, we should value their opinions not just as your customers but as the experienced MMO gamers many are.

Vinaddar

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There is a message by Mmaas that shows quite well how these changes impact Armorsmiths:

Mmaas wrote:

Okay, did some math, and got some numbers. I think that this will be a little bit of a wakeup call to the folks who aren't looking into this TOO deeply thus far.

An armorsmith is crafting composite and wants to have high kinetic layers, and decent base stats. Currently, they can bump the special kinetic resist using6-7 points to get it to an acceptable level, then spend the rest on HAM, to make it more wearable.

With the new system, to get the kinetic to the same level willl require not 7-8 points, but 9-10 points. This leaves no extra points to reduce the HAM on the armor. Okay, not a huge issue you think. Next part of the armor, making the segment. Once again, pushing up the "quality" bar of the armor, raising resists, then reducing the HAM cost once again. To get good resists, you will once again need to spend your entire pool to get the armor resists up - even if the final figure says 50%. 10 Experimentation points to hit a 50% quality on the armor. Once again no leftover points to take off the HAM cost.

Finally, with the segments made, the smith uses the segments to make the final armor section. All points once again go to reaching that target mark of 80% kinetic, and decent base. No points left over to spend on reducing HAM costs.

Beinga Master Armorsmith, I can tell you just what the stats are now, and what they will be with the new changes.

The last batch of armor I made taking down stats and notes looks like this:

HIGH RESIST KINETIC GLOVES:

Current System: Base Resists: 60% Kinetic 80% HAM 67.63.70

With the new system it would look like this:

New System: Base Resists 60% Kinetic 80% HAM 116.112.119

Okay, how about LOW HAM GLOVES?

Current System: Base Resists 51% Kinetic 67% HAM 44.42.46

With the new crafting system it would look like this:

New System: Base Resists 21% Kinetic 37% HAM 44.42.46

This isn't a joke. These stats aren't plucked out of the air. This is hard solid experimented items.

Do the math, if the schematic requires resources that max out at 40% of the "total quality" you will now have tp spend 10 points to get it to that 40%!! Not 4-5 that you currently can do, and use the remainder on other things, like accuracy for weaponsmiths, HAM or Resists for Armorsmiths, Uses or Filling for Chefs, Charges or Potential for medics. Selusa, you know me, and know my work. I don't muck about, and I take crafting seriously. There are many weapons and items that require rare named resources, to go off the top of my head, I can think of the following weapons:

Scatter Pistol - required Doonium Iron, terrible conductivity, capped, will not be fixed. There goes the weapon that was already nerfed. BH's will just love their new guns at mediocre damage, and 700 condition right out of a crate, and with terrible accuracy and HAM costs to boot.

Rocket Launchers - require Iron, once again very low conductivity, current smiths are bumping damage up to what they can, and using remaining points to attempt to fix the ghastly HAM costs on these.

Vibro Knucklers - require copper, and desh copper high in SR. While the final item can use Polysteel Copper for a decent SR stat, Desh copper has a cap at around 400 it appears. Currently I make good damage and speed knucklers (2.2 speed, 37-145 damage with +21 accuracies across the board) The new system will allow the same damage, and the accuracies will go right down to base value so the final outcome for the knuckler would be 2.2 speed, 37-145 damage, +0 accuracies accross all three ranges.

FWG5 Pistol - requires 30 of 36 resources to be ferrous, and 15 to be iron. Drop the accuracy or condition right down on these once more.

Launcher Pistols - Require 88 of 98 resources to be either iron (66 units) or ferrous (22 units). See note above for FWG5.

Republic Blaster (or Modified Republic Blaster) - Using Plumbum Iron, a horrid resources for condutivity. Drop accuracy, and condition down to have the same damage output. Brand new Republisc Blasters should have around 800 condition now, and base accuracies.

E11 Rifle, Jawa Rifle, T-21 Rifle all will suffer in HAM costs, Condition or accuracy. All require rare irons capped low in stats required.

Featherweight FWG5 - requires Axidiite Iron, a resources that appears to be capped at 200 conductivity. Currently these get to about 40% damage/speed of the schematic potential, and remaining points are used in condition and HAM costs. Kiss those extra's bye...

You wanted stats? There you go. I hope this wakes up some of the other crafters and people who actually use crafted items to see what this change will do to the crafters.

for some reasoin i cannot edit the message.

Micco's post is the one in green.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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Vinaddar wrote:

There is a message by Mmaas that shows quite well how these changes impact Armorsmiths:

Hmmm, thanks Vinaddar, but this is exactly what is leading to my confusion. This exact same post was torn to shreds in the TC forum and there were several people that disagree with the results this person got and even his current base stats. I'mnot saying it's right or wrong, since I'm not an armorsmith, it is just getting to be be so confusing to try and pull the details from these posts. When and if you get the chance, can you read through some of the TC stuff and maybe you can see why i'm getting allmessed up? Thanks for replying and trying to help me out.

- Right now the playing field is very level. we can all make the same items. they all have the same outcome. the only difference is i harvested 300k of the best said resource 2 months ago and a new player did not. I had to wait it out a month and work my way up before i could compete with the other Masters. I assumed this was because i was a Novice and they are Masters. With this new change, a new player that dosen't have any good resources can't make anything good enough that other players will actually buy it. I will still sell all my artisan wares (99.999%) at the same low price. I feel sorry for the new player that wasn't here for the OQ1000 or the CD1000 or the UT1000 spawns. Unless these resources spawn this good again, this new master artisan will never be able to compete with me. The poor guy with have to do lame survey missions until he saves up enough to buy some of these resources, which because of this patch, the price will now sell for double or more. The new player will be frustrated and discouraged at this and will either quit the game or go combat class. This will foreseeably create a Veteran Crafter Monopoly to some extent. Because no matter what you change, people only want to buy the very best, it costs more, butlets you live longer, have more fun, and get what you want done faster. This change is only really going tohurt the new player. And not just the crafter

So far we have talked about weapons and armor. but I'm really concerned for the other crafting proffessions. This is going to really change the whole game, anything that takes organic's to craft will take a big hit because the low stats that are all too common will play a much bigger role now, this will make healing, buffing, and food consumption a totally different ballgame. People are still gonna only want the "best" protection/damage/speed/quality items, but they will be heavier/more Ham cost/less condition/shorter effect duration,and will wear out faster, needing replacement. this patch will also make current prices skyrocket for the "best" stuff and so players are going tohave to payand more often..... Dosen't seem very fair to me.

I could ramble on but I think I've given you some fair points to consider.

Good Luck,

Asmo

Yes IntoTheGarbageChuteFlyboy!

"By giving players access to all the goods at once, they will finally be able to comparison shop in a meaningful way and set price standards."

Yes comparsion shoping without adding down time walking all over the galaxy will be a win win.

DS

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JustG wrote:

That's alot of pages about this!

Thank you everyone for the responses. We will be talking about this tomorrow.

- g

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