Merchant Archive
Thread: Merchant revamp shows flaw in Skill Points System
Jedi2k
Sat Aug 28, 2004 5:53 pm
#14
You canmaster one elite combat classand still have enough points tomasterartisan and a elite crafting class and still have enough skill points to get Merchant 3000 by now you will have used them all but you can kill alot of things and stillcraft things, be seen on the planetary map, and have enough vendors to sell them. You can even get rid of the food and survey line and get more points to go up the merchant class further for more vendors.
DingoBoi
Sat Aug 28, 2004 10:27 pm
#15
Silberado wrote:
blah blah blah.. i want to be able to do everything regardless of how unfair and unjust it is to an entire profession just so I can be uber.
/fixed.
Silberado
Sun Aug 29, 2004 12:08 am
#16
Why is a Second Account not considered an Exploit?
Your doubling your advantable over other players.
Your taking advantage of the developers gearing the game towards players helping player.
Waterproof
Sun Aug 29, 2004 5:12 am
#17
you know..
it would be really interesting if Crafters DID NOT get better results just by becoming master (using skill points).
but rather, they would be better Crafters depending how long they have remained in their given profession..
spending 63 points to be a crafter is the only way to sell something..
if youre not a master, no one wants your goods..
this should'nt be so..
perhaps being a master crafter and spending the 63 points, should grant other types of advantages.. like less failure rate.. or even additional items (but only a few).
the system we live with is an all or nothing system..
sad
Ikooga
Sun Aug 29, 2004 7:36 am
#18
That would make it incredibly hard for new crafters to compete
I'm now master, but i have to wait for 6 month till i have enough experimentation points to actually make something that people want? Naw, i'm not doing that, bye crafter.
More Skillpoints: Sounds nice in theory, but know where it leads? The defence-stacker-FOTM-PvPers will just use them to get 1 or 2 more lines of a combat prof get even more uber and you "have" to do the same to compete, again not leaving anything for crafting.
One thing that would fix this would be to remove stacking completely. You only get the mods of the profession you use at the time. No more "I hit you with my 2hd sword but you can't hit me cause i'm fencer/pistoleer too"
GraySeven
Sun Aug 29, 2004 7:41 am
#19
The current skill point system is one of the few game design issues that was gotten right the first time. You have enough SP's to Master 3 professions and dabble in a fourth, and it comes down to "what do you want to do most?".
I personally started out wanting to craft. I had some weapon skills, but those were afterthoughts. Finally, they were gone altogether as I Mastered AS and DE as well as Artisan, and used the left overs for 3/4/0/4 Merchant.
When I decided I wanted to go out with buddies and "eat snakes", I had the choice of doing it on a different server than my crafter, dropping Merchant and a crafting Mastery for Combat skills, or dropping coin on a second account.
There is no "flaw" in the skill point system. Its working as intended by preventing people from doing everything themselves.
HA-SuperNaut
Sun Aug 29, 2004 8:27 am
#20
Silberado wrote:
Why is a Second Account not considered an Exploit?
Your doubling your advantable over other players.
Your taking advantage of the developers gearing the game towards players helping player.
Because it is making $$ for SOE. Therefor it is not an exploit.
Elyssa
Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:06 am
#21
Strangely enough, I have always thought the same thing.
GraySeven wrote:
The current skill point system is one of the few game design issues that was gotten right the first time.
Despite the fact that *SO* many things have been out of whack since day one, I've always thought the skill point system was truly a work of art.
The only thing I don't like about it is that since there is no way to measure a character by "level," the game scales your difficulty rating based on your combat ability with your equipped weapon. As a master crafter (artisan/architect/merchant), I am more than capable of running high-end deliver missions with much bigger payout, but because I have zero combat skills, the average n00b at Mos Eisley can get higher paying missions than me.
Naturally, I'm not interested in PvP but I joined a faction so I could participate in things with my RL friends. I got the FP's by turning in Act 1 disks, not by actually doing any fighting. Anyway, I'd really like to earn more FP's to buy some of the cool furniture, but the payout on the deliver missions is so small that it'd take me forever to buy enough of it. However, a master combat character can run deliver missions for a considerably better payout just because they have combat skills, even though the mission requires no combat.
Yogol
Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:07 am
#22
Waterproof wrote:
they would be better Crafters depending how long they have remained in their given profession..
Yeah, I agree here... They should give "master profession points" or something : every moth that you keep a certain master professions, you get some extra bonus.
BoberFett
Sun Aug 29, 2004 9:59 pm
#23
I disagree that it was done totally correctly. I do like that fact that you can choose your skillset to some extent, rather than be pigeon holed into one pre-configured class.
However, I dislike the novice, 4 skill tree, master approach. I would prefer that skills be placed into variable sized skill trees, and that the skill points per character be scaled way back. SWG is halfway to a skill based system, but not completely. You don't have to become a master, but they sure want to push you that direction.
That's just my opinion.
GraySeven
Sun Aug 29, 2004 10:35 pm
#24
I fully believe that certain professions could be "supplemental" professions; professions above the starter professions that are only half a tree and compliment other professions....
.....*cough* like Merchant or Squad Leader
(puts on flame suit, grabs marshmallows)
Silberado
Mon Aug 30, 2004 8:36 pm
#25
Ok point #1: Choices.
The idea is to give us more choices.. Not stick us with having to spend all our skill points on our Chosen Profession. With The current Revamp Crafters are going to have to sink more Skill Point into Merchant. Limiting them in their ability to join in the fighting weither it be PvE or PvP.
Remember I'm not proposing giving up a total of 350 point, I still want to restrict the total to 250 for fighters and 250 for Crafters, with 100 point to play around with towards the other Profession.
ps;I have made my choice, i going all in on fighting professions. I'm shutting down my resource vendor and have no intention of giving any of my skill points Towards Crafting Profession.
Point #2 Second Account.
This just supports my idea in, People want to try out both aspects of the game and are willing to spend the extra cash to do it. I think more People would get second accounts if they could find out just what the crafting profession can do. However in The present state their not willing to give up what the worked hard to get, they'll just move on to another game,
Point #3 Flaw
No it not a Flaw per say, I just couldn't come up with a better word for what I see as a problemsucking the Fun out of the game the game forMe.
FormlessOne
Mon Aug 30, 2004 8:59 pm
#26
Silberado wrote:
The recent changes in Merchant highlights a fundamental problem with the skill points systems. I myself started SWG primarily to be a fighter. I’ve always played first person shooters of one type or another. However after doing Merchant for my first Holo and entertainer for my second, I became more interested in the other aspects of the game. I don’t want to give up my fighting skills to play around with the crafting professions and don’t like the fact my vendors will soon be useless. As a result I will stop collecting the resources I currently sell to Artisans.
The problem with the skill points system is you have to be either an Uber Fighter or an Uber Crafter in order to be competitive in SWG. You end, up as I do, in putting all your skill points towards your chosen profession leave you little or nothing in skill points left to play around with.
My proposal would be to:
Give us an extra 100 Skill Points
Have 100 Skill Points set aside specifically for Fighting and Crafting.
The remaining point would be open to place were you want.
What this would do is allow you to still have 250 points towards your chosen Professions and still have 100 points in the other major profession. This would allow crafters to have decent fighting skills and fighters to have some crafting skills. Personally it would allow me to maintain my fighting skills, keep my vendors, and survey for resources. This will also be valuable in the future Jedi Missions if it ends up being another profession grind.
Nah. I'm quite happy with the balance as maintained. I don't want to see an additional 100 skill points - heck, we probably have too many now, as many elite professions can be mastered while ensuring that you have more than enough skills to make yourself near self-sufficient.
Using profession limits as a way to encourage social behavior and interaction is one of the things that keeps me interested in the game. I don't want to see a bunch of antisocial uber killers/uber crafters running around - I want to see guilds where something other than "ganking" serves as a motivation for banding together. I want to see lively trade boards, where crafters bargain with crafters as well as with the typical hunter/gatherer characters in order toproduce the more interesting items.