Droid Engineer Archive

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DarthRoe wrote:

The real question is: is there any reason for a pure crafter to continue playing this game?

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Haven't the recent decisions of the "new" Dev team been clear enough?

GO AWAY. This is a game for people who like to shoot at and hit things, like every other MMO out there.

You are not neccesary, and your very existance is the bane of all combat players so you have been "upgraded" out of existance.

At least that's what I hear in the deafening silence crafting and all support professions are getting right now.

Look at the poor entertainers - they've been yelling and crying and screaming for a year about "buff bots" and the Devs told them a solution was coming - and it did - they eliminated active buffs!

It's this type of backhanded activity that comes through crystal clear - unless you shoot at or hit things with your hands, you should just pack up shop and let the people willing to sell for nothing emulate an NPC economy, instead of the dynamic business enviornment that SWG once was.

AO

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Fobok wrote:




Well, have you noticed how this only suddenly came about only recently? Did you notice how they were planning on a multi-stage CURB testing until only then? It seems to me like the reason non-combat characters haven't been getting much attention lately is that some marketting person, or maybe Lucasfilm, is pushing them to get everything out in time for the movie release. I'm guessing they had to divert all attention into the getting things done, which of course focuses on combat due to the CURB (which is all about combat of course), and for the expansion likely the combat-related stuff is easier to program. (The whole NPC turn-in, as I think on it, reeks of having to put something in place quickly to get it out the door, rather than coming up with some new interface.)

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Yes, I don't think it passed by anyone that they had this big complex beta registration and such and the CU beta never happened, LOL. Just another in a long line of "Huh?" moments - I really think some of us should get together and write a book about the Development of SWG - it would be a fascinating study, if nothing else.

That said, I think it's missing the big picture to say the CURB is all about combat. In essence, the whole game is - from a certain perspective. A crafter may never do anything but craft, but by proxy any changes to combat affect them because 90% of the products we sell are used in some way before/during/after combat.

The problem I have right now is that they are making all these changes to combat without care as to the consequences to everyone else.

That's why, it's very very clear that they want to reduce support/crafting professions to be as unnecessary as possible. And maybe, yes, sometime in the future they might attempt to recitfy it, but with the merchant slap in the face (better known as global search with prices) and other changes (those poor, poor entertainers - although again, I have to laugh that they got just what they asked for - no more buff bots - because there are no more active buffs LOL).

They aren't even bothering to give us lip service - but in this case their silence speaks many volumes. We've been put in our place. So have medics, entertainers, and most other crafters. Just about every change in the CURB, with the exception of WS and AS getting their useful salable product line increased by a large margin, is reducing the purpose of many professions that aren't based on shooting and punching.

In essence, they are completely reversing the paradigm the game runs on - they are making combat grouping necessary instead of desirable, and they are making crafting and other support professions optional (of course, with the exception of the evergreen AS and WS, who win no matter what happens).

AO

Yet... people were saying the exact same thing back when the Jedi were getting their revamp. They effected just about everybody too, right down to the economy... but, due to the rush of getting it out, they focused on the Jedi for those 2 months. The following months they fixed the majority of the stuff that got messed up during the Jedi revamp for the other professions. It'll likely be the same thing here... they changed combat, they have to rush to get it out so they focus on combat and the most critical related problems, and they'll fix the rest later.

BTW, entertainers and crafters *have* gotten word from the Devs. A number of posts in the last few days alone have focused on weaponsmiths, armorsmiths, and entertainers. (Entertainers got a huge post explaining the inspiration buffs, explaining why it was passive (it's a replacement for wound healing, which was passive to begin with), and that we're getting more advanced abilities that will require being active.) They're also fixing many of the problems the non-combat professions are having... for example, fixing the stat requirements for armour, which had been changed at first but is now back. Sure, it's not fixing everything, but they are on a tight schedule.

And, it's not like they promised us anything. They said outright that non-combat professions would get an update after the combat update. They outright said that we'd only get what they could spare development time on until after the CURB. If they're being rushed to push the update and the expansion pack out, they obviously don't have much development time to spare.

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Fobok wrote:
Yet... people were saying the exact same thing back when the Jedi were getting their revamp. They effected just about everybody too, right down to the economy... but, due to the rush of getting it out, they focused on the Jedi for those 2 months. The following months they fixed the majority of the stuff that got messed up during the Jedi revamp for the other professions. It'll likely be the same thing here... they changed combat, they have to rush to get it out so they focus on combat and the most critical related problems, and they'll fix the rest later.

BTW, entertainers and crafters *have* gotten word from the Devs. A number of posts in the last few days alone have focused on weaponsmiths, armorsmiths, and entertainers. (Entertainers got a huge post explaining the inspiration buffs, explaining why it was passive (it's a replacement for wound healing, which was passive to begin with), and that we're getting more advanced abilities that will require being active.) They're also fixing many of the problems the non-combat professions are having... for example, fixing the stat requirements for armour, which had been changed at first but is now back. Sure, it's not fixing everything, but they are on a tight schedule.

And, it's not like they promised us anything. They said outright that non-combat professions would get an update after the combat update. They outright said that we'd only get what they could spare development time on until after the CURB. If they're being rushed to push the update and the expansion pack out, they obviously don't have much development time to spare.

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Very well stated. I will reserve harsh judgement until after the CU hits Live and gets ironed out a bit.

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DarthRoe wrote:

The real question is: is there any reason for a pure crafter to continue playing this game?

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QFE