Development Cycle Archive
Thread: Understanding the Crafting Experimentation Changes
TroThorns
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:02 pm
#79
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.
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.
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.
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.
Most sincerely,
Umm, did you guys really think about this before you posted this? The thrust of the rationale for this change is (1) fix the economy; (2) make it easier for new vendors to get into the market; and (3) make crafters have to choose when experimenting.
In order: (1) this doesn't affect the "economy" at all. Who has the billions of credits isn't really the issue, it is whether there are too many billions of credits, right? Explain this further, nothing in your post suggest how this will impact the economy at all.
(2) This will make it harder for new vendors to get into the market, not easier. Estabished crafters have the resources and money to buy the skill tapes to insure they have better products. Essentially this change does the opposite of what you propose as its goal.
(3) We already have choices. A weaponsmith or armorsmith can already choose damage/effect v. HAM costs. What this change does is allow us less choice. Now everyone will only be able to experiment on the first item. HAMs will suffer across the board. And with buffs prevalant in the game, and with the upcoming revamp to the HAM system isn't HAM essentially irrelevant? So again, this change doesn't accomplish your objectives.
In sort your explaination shows some very fatal flaws in your thinking. It doesn't explain in anyway why this change was made. It makes you appear either totally incompetent, or dishonest.
By the way, there is one explaination that makes this all make sense. You are nerfing crafters because equipment has gotten too good. It is pretty obvious to anyone who really knows that game that this is the real reason you are doing this. Instead of nerfing combat classes directly, or increasing Mob difficulty you are nerfing the equipment used by players.
I look forward to your follow-up to this post. I hope it is more intelligent and honest.
UmmonPrime
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:03 pm
#80
The rich just got richer and the poor will continue to have crap.
Kilarny
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:05 pm
#81
1. Ban accounts of people running a double-click script to loot skill tape locations, or make this no longer possible. Make them work at least a LITTLE for it...you've got people on every server violating the rules of the game. Put some enforcement in there, hey?
2. Fix the Mon Calamari racial Weapon Assembly Bonus to actually be the +15 it's supposed to be.
3. Increase (slightly) the number of skill tape drops and increase the number of locations/mobs they can come from.
STiCKyNBK
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:07 pm
#83
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.
As a past Armorsmith, unless you changed the way encumbrance is experimented on this comment is proof that the DEV's don’t actively participate. I can fully experiment encumbrance and the change has always been negligible in the final product, no where near the value of experimenting resists. You want us to experiment on other lines.. make them worth spending points on.
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.
Well, these changes will onlymake that issue worse, handicapMasters with only 10 points, andmake it harder for people to break into markets.. but thats my two cents. This change will make it very hard for non power gamers compete.
chris21
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:07 pm
#84
As for the improvement of the economy.........things will only start getting better, for those of you who don't keep track of all the "nich" markets this game creates, i.e.- out of game credit sales. Prices for credits has jumped up dramaticaly in the past few weeks, because many so called credit dupers have been shutdown, thus less people will be gettign their dirty little hands on credits. This will play a huge role in reducing the inflation of the economy, and thus make improvements for the rest of us. As for crafting, this is a step in the right direction, but the power gamers and mega rich crafters will always sit on top of everyone else, and there is not much that can be done about that. For all of you who are concerned about the pre-nerf market for items, make the choice to boycott those items, i doubt they will be too hard to spot. It is time for we, the players to take this games plight into our own hands, by simply doing what we can to avoid buying overpriced items, and pre-nerf merchandise, prices will be forced down and emphisis will be brought back to new (post-patch 7) items.
1Kylekatarn1
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:09 pm
#85
There are much better and more effective ways of "fixing" the economy than makuing everything we have worse. How about increase Shuttle fees? As I see it the reason the economy is crap is that there is a higher outgoing source of money to the galaxy (missons) and there aren't enough ways of brining that money back to the server (such as shuttle fees or maintence).
Instead of just completly destroying weapons/armor/food/droids/architecture how bout you put in more ways of taking money back in. I thought that the Imperial crack down would do that but having 1 person get scanned a month will not do that.
ElevenFortyOne
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:11 pm
#86
This is ridiculous, even with all of the people telling you what a bad idea this is and why, you're still going through with it? You can kiss my accounts goodbye when this goes live!
UmmonPrime
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:11 pm
#87
chris21 wrote:
As for the improvement of the economy.........things will only start getting better, for those of you who don't keep track of all the "nich" markets this game creates, i.e.- out of game credit sales. Prices for credits has jumped up dramaticaly in the past few weeks, because many so called credit dupers have been shutdown, thus less people will be gettign their dirty little hands on credits. This will play a huge role in reducing the inflation of the economy, and thus make improvements for the rest of us. As for crafting, this is a step in the right direction, but the power gamers and mega rich crafters will always sit on top of everyone else, and there is not much that can be done about that. For all of you who are concerned about the pre-nerf market for items, make the choice to boycott those items, i doubt they will be too hard to spot. It is time for we, the players to take this games plight into our own hands, by simply doing what we can to avoid buying overpriced items, and pre-nerf merchandise, prices will be forced down and emphisis will be brought back to new (post-patch 7) items.
If wish that was possible, but people will always want the best if they have the credits for it, no matter what.
I made a choice not to stockpile crates of armor to sell after the patch because I belive that I will be making better armor.
AvaroT
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:12 pm
#88
This dissertation does nothing but hide the fact that this change is nothing more than a NERF to experimentation. Maybe there's a good reason to tone down the quality of many items in the game now. That's fine, but why can't you just come out and say it. Why does SOE always have to put a spin on everything they do?
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.
Do you honestly expect anyone to believe this? The real causes of the horribly screwed up economy are the holocron debacle and the failure of SOE totakeswift action againstexploiters andtodo something about all the AFK loot campers. The crafting system is the only thing about the economy that IS working.
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.
This is just plain wrong. Under the current system, Master crafters with10 expermentation pointsusually can only maxa single attribute, leaving only a point or two to apply to another.So why change it? We already DO make hard choices. The real problem is that many of the secondary characteristics of many items simply don't matter. Nobody cares about the HAM costsofarmor orweapons, because theyall get buffed anyway.Nobodyis going to chose longer duration for buffs over effectiveness, so docs always max effectiveness at thecost ofduration. But they can't max both, even now.
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.
Hello!!! This isn't even possible now. It is not possible to maximize all of the attributes in an item. What are you changing? Nothing. You're simply nerfing every item in the game that has more than one experimentable attribute.
We would like to encourage players to carefully choose where to spend their experimentation points, especially when using lower quality resources.
The problem with this logic is that all serious crafters use nothing but the best available resources. So who cares what happens when using lower quality resources? By making the results with lower quality resources even worse than before, all you're doing it making it that much harder for new players to get a foothold in their profession.
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.
That's exactly how it is now!!! As a CM, for example,I have to chose between range and effectiveness on my poisons. I can'thave both. The same goes for every other crafter in the game.
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.
Wait, you're going to add attributes to our items, or fix the broken ones? One of the big problems, is that so many items in the game have attributes that DON'T MATTER, either because those attributes are broken, or there is no mechanism in the game to make use of them. Factory capacity is a perfect example. Youcan experiment it, but it has not effect on the final product.
And hopefully, this will lead to an increase in competition between crafters.
The only competition that this will bring is competition between crafters who hoarded pre-patch items, and those who did not. Once all the prepatch stuff is gone (2-3 years from now, I expect), everybody will be back on the same footing again. Please explain how these changes will increase competition!
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.
No offense, but as I said above, I don't feel that thisISa frank andhonest explanation.Everything that you claim is needed to fix the game is already there.Crafters already have to make a decision about which attributes to maximize. Sure, a crafter can maximize one attribute and still have a few points left over to improve (but not maximize) another one. Now its seems that you're just taking away that little bit of extra improvement in the second attribute. This change is justgoing to make itthat much harder to make good stuff. I'm not saying that's bad, but if that's what you're doing, just say it. You're not fixing anything, you're just making it different.
The bigproblem that everyone haswith this change is that you're putting all this effort into fixing a perfectly functional system, at the same time creating a huge "pre-nerf" market like this gamehas never before seen, and at the same timeignoring dozens of bugs, many of which have existedsince launch.
As always, we welcome and will happily address your comments and questions.
Most sincerely,
TheLateAnakinSolo
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:12 pm
#89
INSANITY!
First off, I seem to recall one single thing that I heard a time ago...
"The Best Items should be able to be crafted at this stage in the game."
HELLO!!?? This is the exact same! To put it simply, Items will NEVER have the quality that they have now. Just answer this... 7 or 8 months after release, and you don't want the best stuff around? You are nerfing EVERY profession in the game!
For example...
Bothans can't use composite armor right now because they don't have stat pools that high. If they slice it, and buy the best stuff they MIGHT be able to fit into a full set. After patch. NOTHING!
Weapons with high ham costs... Just reinforces the combat spam stuff.
Why do you nerf everything good in the game? Ever think that crafting is good right now? Ever think that players like it???? Ever think that we can't level without the best stuff in the game being usable to us?
jefmes
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:13 pm
#90
The fact of the matter is that the majority of you posting here are people who play the game a lot (like I do) and like being Masters and/or near Masters because you're making these best items. What do you normally experiment on when making a weapon? Damage. No one wants a weaker weapon - why? Because there are almost ALL max capability weapons out there.
Do you not see the other experimentation bars? Most of them go unused because the current implementation is lacking importance for these other stats. Part of what this crafting change is supposed to do (as Chrysalide mentioned) is make crafters make CHOICES. Right now we don't make choices, we go for the damage first, and speed second. The other stats need to have importance and effect overall gameplay to a greater degree. Does it water down the playing field a little. Yes - because it IS evening it out. There will MUCH greater difference between players, but on a smaller level.
I for one think these changes are for the better, as it's a step toward putting the economy where it was SUPPOSED to be in the first place. It ain't gonna be all that bad except for you freaking power-gamer min-maxers, and if it drives some of you away them I'm ALL for it.
Zarathustra
Fri Mar 12, 2004 3:14 pm
#91
The overall messages of this thread:
a) If you want people to start experimenting in other areas, make them worthwhile and useful, don't try and nerf the system.
b) Address why certain resources always spawn horribly, so maybe we'd actually be able to make a decent elite carbine for a change.
c) Fix schematics that don't add elements to the final product, and ones that are bugged (tantel armor, etc...)
We both want the same thing in the game, crafters want more variety, and so do our customers and so do the Dev's. But the Crafters want this done by expanding on the system, not retracting it. If you make other areas more attractive, and add more dynamics, then the game will be much better for it.