Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Understanding the Crafting Experimentation Changes
I read this. And asa non-crafter -- I have no idea what you talking about 
But it sounds to me, like you are trying to bring variety into crafting and reduce uniformity. /shrug Sounds like a good idea to me. Not sure what all the fuss isabout. If this reduces amount of uber armor and weapons in-game -- even better! I doubt that Han Solo hada 80% kinetic and 69% base full suit composite armor, and was wielding a pre-nerf Krayt enhanced speed sliced FWG5 /snort
Now, dearDevs,you know what would be anotherawesome idea? If the most rare and higest quality resources would be tagged as contraband , and us, Smugglers, would have to put our lifes (and reputation!)on the line to get that stuff past shuttleports and spaceports, with BH tracking those of us who dare to ditch the stuff. That would create the only thing this economy is missing - black market and smuggling! Not to mention it would truly turn this game into StarWars.And if you tag pre-nerf stuff as illegal items as well ...
:::shakes violently and goes into seizures::: aaaaah!
Darn enter button.
The only problem i see with this system is resource prices went from 10cpu to 20 cpu & 20cpu to 40 cpu. SO the resource market is going to rocket and then in turn will rocket the prices of the crafted items.
Whether this is good bad ro indifferent. I at least applaud you trying to take a stance to stabalize an out of control game, even if it is not a popular decisssion.
bah
Lunacy, this will do nothing to increase diversity in weapons at all. EVERYONE wants damage/speed. Buffs are easy to get, weapons can be repaired.
This idea is absolute crap and your rationalization is flawed. You actually have the audacity to site player desires in your post when it is very clear from the feedback you have received that such player desires do not exist.
Congratulations on creating a whole new Pre-Patch economy.
It's quite simple. By enacting this change you are doing nothing to stabalize the economy. Perhaps in 8 months to a year you might, but any crafter worth his merit is stockpiling "pre-nerf" weapons, armor, meds, etc. right now. I still see tons of pre-nerf FWG5's being sold, Krayt FWG5's, etc. All you are doing is driving the price of pre-nerf stuff through the ceiling. People have money, they will pay for the best stuff, and the best stuff is the pre-nerf stuff. The new guy will be shut down quickly when he finds he has no chance to compete with those who have stockpiled great weapons.
The new guy will get frustrated, probably will abandon his profession, then a few months later, the old timer will hit burnout and quit, and then where are we? We're in serious trouble, thats where we are.
Guys, please rethink this. Put this on the backburner, tweak it, test it, do other things, like fix PSG's, Tantel Armor, Droid Experimentation, things that are BROKE but you still have not fixed, and leave this issue alone till you can honestly say you have done things to enhance the game for players, not keep dropping it down.
Krayth Armandis
Red Gauntlet
That is what they want you to believe. I have been a crafter since launch. Without other major changes this change will only succeed in creating mostly lesser quality items, with some rare marginally higher items.
JediKozel wrote:
I read this. And asa non-crafter -- I have no idea what you talking about
But it sounds to me, like you are trying to bring variety into crafting and reduce uniformity. /shrug Sounds like a good idea to me. Not sure what all the fuss isabout. If this reduces amount of uber armor and weapons in-game -- even better! I doubt that Han Solo hada 80% kinetic and 69% base full suit composite armor, and was wielding a pre-nerf Krayt enhanced speed sliced FWG5 /snort
Weapons for instance will ALWAYS be experimented towards Maximum Damage/Speed. Range, HAMs and Condition are always after-thoughts. Right now I have an option to decide where I want to spend my extra points, now it seems that I will have no choice but to throw them into Dmg and Speed.
I gave up on combat a long time ago. Crafting was the only thing that SWG had managed to do well enough to keep me in the game. Looks like it's time to look elsewhere.
Chrysalide, thank you for taking the time to explain some of the reasoning behind the planned changes to experimentation. People have made a lot of very important comments all throughout this thread, but I would like to concentrate on what I see as the main issue/problem with this adjustment from my point of view as a Master Armorsmith, Maser Weaponsmith, Master Doctor, and once Master Architect (yes, 2 accounts, for those adding up skill points )
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.
Cyc66 wrote:
I agree with these changes 100%.
My friend just became Master Armorsmith and within 2 days was making comp armor that was ALMOST as good as the best armorsmiths on the server. In fact, if he decided to spend a couple of more credits on better resources he would have got much closer. This doesn't make sense, an inexperienced new AS with lack of funds shouldn't be able to make armor that is within 5% of the best unless he actually dropped some harvesters to gather the best resources and did some research to find the best combination of experimentation.
Weapons are the same as well. There's no reason to compare, just go to any master weapon/armorsmith and if he has your weapon with the desired attributes you buy it. Chances are the other guy has it for a similar price.. and even if it's more or less expensive, who cares, everyone is loaded. There are no choices to be made. No "Should I buy the best weapon or a good weapon along with a suit of armor). Those choices were only made during my first two weeks of play, after I hit a million credits I already had everything I needed and only once in awhile to I buy supplies which hardly cut into my bank.
I also suggest you have a galactic tax on vendors, trades, bazaars, etc. to pull more money out of the game. The shuttle just isn't pulling out enough and I fear the new changes will increase inflation dramatically.
Money comes into the game by killing mobs. That money gets spent at vendors, the vendors spend the money on resources, the resource harvesters spend the money at vendors. It's a vicious circle of inflation since more and more money keeps coming in. Luckily (I'm assuming) the bigger vendors aren't even able to spend all their money since there's nothing for them to buy. The millions are sitting in their account and temporarily out of the economy.
When resource quality has greater effect you'll see the rich vendors pay insane amounts to get those resources as there is now an incentive. All those millions of credits will come back into the game as crafters invest in new resources. You'll also see people who have stockpiled credits pay large amounts for the best items. The reason inflation isn't out of control right now is because the economy is broken. Once the economy is fixed there will be MASSIVE inflation and then a recession as the stockpiles of credits run out and people can't earn enough to keep up the spending..
Finally, isn't it amazing that real world economic theories apply to MMORPG's?
You don't get it either. According to the devs your friend making very good armor 2 days after hitting master AS isn't the point. In the devs minds your friend would have no way to sell that armor because of all the monopolies that existed before your friend became a master.
Did your friend sell that armor they made. If so you just proved the devs wrong.
They keep saying their main point in doing this and the upcoming vendor nerf is to remove monopolies that only exist in their "metrics" and their minds.
The secondpart in your post that I highlighted is also proof that you don't get it. The rich will get richer. These new 12 point smiths will do all the business since they have more points than new masters. The devs claim they are trying to remove the very thing you are saying will happen.
By not getting it you are proving our points that the devs are wrong about the effects these changes will have.
A money sink is when money leaves the economy. In your method it just switches hands from one player to another.
Chrysalide wrote:
Greetings everyone,
The foremost and majority of these are curious as to why this change was implemented.
Flat out no. The major concern was an across the board nerf to the power of all crafted items. We don't care why. We care that you are taking every single crafter and reducing the power of the items they craft.
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.
How is the economy in poor shape? You need to back this up with facts because I simply don't see it. The only barrier to entry for a crafter is resources and experimentation tapes. Your change does absolutely nothing to change the millions of resources stockpiled by established crafters or the absolute necessity of having +20 experimentation for those classes with experiementation (armorsmiths, weasponsmiths, architects, doctors).
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.
There is absolutely nothing easy about maximizing items unless you are a one trick pony crafter (single line experiementation or only one experimentation line that matters).
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.
There is a huge difference in many classes. We make choices constantly with what is available.Weapons and Armor are DEFINITELY where we makethese choices. And again, this change will do NOTHING to add to variety. We're going to max damage out on weapons, max healing power out on stimpacks, etc etc etc.
Again the only barrier to entryfor a crafter in multiline experiementing is 1) resources, 2) experimentation tapes, and3) Word of mouth. Howis this fix going to make an established armorsmith with millions of stockpiled resources dating back months of real life time less potent? How is this going to give the no-skill-tapes crafter more able to compete against those with +20 experimentation? You are decidedlymute on this. Finally word of mouth is very easy to generate in this game with AFK-macroing your shop location, using the trade / galaxy forums, and finding prime real estate to establish your vendors, but your change does nothing to helpthis.
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.
Rebuilding the economy? How does this rebuild the economy? What it does to the economy is make estabilshed crafters FILTHY rich because they will have stockpiles of pre-nerf equipment. The new guy won't see a nickel until all of these legacy items disappear... in some cases they will NEVER disappear (harvesters, pets).
Why do you want to redefine the crafting game? It is NOT BROKEN. We asked for a few simple fixes... not a destruction of the crafting professions.
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.
Ummmmmm you haven't thought this thru at all. We will continue to maximize the most important attribute on products (damage on weapons, healing power on stims, extraction rates on harvesters). Unless you are putting forth some radical earthshaking fundamental changes to the game itself, we are still going to findTHE most important attribute to experiment on and the cookie cutter will continue.... the main difference though will be a LACK OF VARIETY IN SUB STATS. Everyone spends ALL of their points to max outthemost important thing andthey have nothing left over. There is alargevariety in the crafting market today for secondary experimentation points.... take buff packs as an example... there are those with extra charges, there are those with lower medical use requirements... but they both havemaximized buffpower.There won't be that variety after thisnerf hits the floor. You'll get max Power with nothing elseleft over.
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.
Again, you are NOT leveling the playing field. Youare across the board nerfing our products while maintaining the overwhelming advantage established crafters have by stockpiledold resources and experimentation tapes.
THere is already competition amongst crafters! How will this increase competition? You are creating a pre-nerf economy that will mean NO SALES for those crafting post-nerf.
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.
No it is NOT broken.
No items are not going to be better.
I'm here to call this what it is. A global nerf.
Your frank and honest explanation is a dancing doublespeak that says next to nothing of substance. You do not demonstrate how your changes will effect the changes you wish to occur. It is just pathetic.
1) Basing the quality of items purely on resources heavily weighs the system to older established crafters with large stockpiles of all of the best resources. Resources that due to the in-equity built into your system can take months to top.
2) By requiring that all your points be put into one stat to max it you are making all items one stat. Bottom line is that all stats are not equal
HAM + Durability < damage/speed
although we could replace damage/speed and have the same result
HAM + Durability < infinity
It does not matter how low your HAM cost is, all it matters in your overly simplistic combat system is what is your Damage over Time. With doctor buffs and food HAM is irrelevant and you can always buy more guns. The highest I have seen to date is a mere 20% durability increase.
Other than suggest at least one thing that might actually help this change to achieve your goals.
Immediately increase the rate of resource spawning to 3 times its current rate for all resources. That means that at any one time there are 3 times the variety of resources thus increasing the likelyhood that a good resource will spawn within the critical 4-6 week time frame post patch. If you want to "break" the monopolies you think exist then give the unwashed masses of low income crafters that you believe exist what they really need, the resources to compete with the big boys. The only way to do this on any reasonable time scale is to completely change the rate of spawn for high quality resources so that in short order what was the best 6 months ago is no better than what just spawned two days ago. This system where the best steel on chilastra spawned last July is ludicrous. You have to up that rate, and up it now.
You also need to balance out the stats on things. If an item has 3 things you can experiement then all those three bars should have equal utility. If any one bar is more valuable than another you will not get any variety at all, everyone will compete based on the stats from that one bar. I am not sure this is possible given the one dimensional nature of things in SWG (like combat) but you will have to try.
I sure hope that this change is part of a bigger master plan because if this is all you go you are in serious trouble.