CUEmu - Thread Posts

Rhysen

Mon Dec 20, 2004 6:20 am

This is something I touched on in another thread and I think it's relevant to this discussion. It's a simple question:

Can anyone provide an example of a weapon or piece of armor superior to what a Weapon/Armorsmith can create that drops from an average everyday mob?

I doubt anyone can. All the items that are superior to those that are crafted by another profession drop from non-average mobs (ex. Nightsister Lances), require the player to quest for it (Nym's Slugthrower) or provide a single component/schematic that requires the participation of a Crafter AND the resources required to nomally make the item (Krayt enhanced weapons). Fully functional items superior to crafted ones do not drop off Meatlumps near Coronet City. And it should not be happening here.

Looting does not replace the crafters in the ground game. It integrates with the abilities inherent in the profession (being able to create the wanted item) AND the capabilities of the crafter him/herself (the availibility and quality of the resources they've collected to make the item). What many "pilots", and I use the term very loosely, are pushing for is for looting to replace the crafter completely in JTL. That fully functional items better than what the crafter can create should drop and there be no need to deal with a Shipwright at all.

SOE is revamping the loot system on the ground to provide more interesting loot for the players to find. But they're not going to be tossing fully functional superior VKs into the loot system. Perhaps components to make a superior VK provided you find a good Weaponsmith. The NPCs in JTL are average, everyday mobs. There isn't a DWB themepark in space. Nor are the components in question dropping from non-average NPCs exclusively, like Gunships or Decimators. They're dropping from everything and the effort to get an item is summed up in the tolerance to farming.

JeCy

Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:12 am

#93

Seeing ive been a crafter since launch, ive done, and played for a long time, armorer, aritsan since launch, DE, architect, since last january, artisan, bio and chef..since jun,, this is 3 toons,, i droped bio for shipwright and it was the biggest mistake as bio is such a great prof,, and after only one month of shipwright i stoped crafting ships all together yea there is a big problem with this. i know many will say go back to bio but aftere using 7 million units i thought i might hold out a while and see if anything was done to fix this.

Re'n is a lame way of crafting, why it was made so much different than all the other ways of crafting IE, krayt guns, seg enhancers, bile enhancers, janta blood, RIS.. ect is beyond me.. Till they fix it im not even gonna bother.. space to me is fairly borring anyway.. soo i dont spend much time at all up there and that being said if im looting stuff that blows my crafted parts away.. then someone that flys 5-8 ours daily i cant imagin the kinda loot he has.. BTW i have the best resources from shifts since launch,, and using top JTL stuff, we have had many incredible shifts of stuff with pirmary sats over 800 soo im getting maxed out exp trees,, and still cant come close..

Je'Cy

Emperorrpa

Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:26 pm

#94

My personal ship is 100% looted components and I'm nearly Master Shipwright now. I use to craft components at first but then even the newbees stoped buying them now I make only chassis and paint kits. I make a good amount of cash on them so not complaining however I feel that this is a little unfair for shipwrights. I mean soon we'll run out of customers for chassis and everyone will be buying loot only components.

All I can say is make your money now before the customer pool runs dry.

-Toned

Jaster Mereel

Master Bounty Hunter

"It's Just A Job"

Bahboo

Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:50 pm

#95

Believe it or not, I actually sell capacitors. I even tell my customers how much better the looted ones are, but they buy mine anyway. Out of ignorance, or loyalty I cannot determine but my business does just fine with the current status of looted parts. Boosters and capacitors are my only problem now. I'm making everything else with at least 2 key stats better than the standard loot drops. With capacitors I don't even bother and boosters are close to parallel but still not as good as most looted ones.

I would love to see the loots nerfeda little more though. I agree that it just isn't set up properly. Why should a crafter invest a multitude of expensive resources into a part whenany pilotcould loot a better one for free? You don't see this nonsense in the ground game with weapons or armor as has been stated in thisthread. Moreover, the parts we makedemand so much resources that its impossible to compete with space loot. The pilots don't mind of course because they have a loophole around our prices. However, they'll be crying with us when all the SW's go out of business because they won't be able to find anyone to make them a new chassis or missiles.

Bahboo Chupi
Happily Retired 12pt Armorsmith

Lone_Wookiee

Sun Jan 09, 2005 3:52 pm

#96

I'd like to see uber upgrade subcomponents be loot drops. Better than the craftable upgrades that barely make a difference, but that have a noticeable improvement in the component and don't have the drawbacks of the our current upgrades.

Togra
Master Shipwright
300, -3600 just north of Coronet
Sunrunner

Satch_of_GL

Mon Jan 10, 2005 9:36 am

#97

Wow, this is impressive. I have spent at least 16 million on parts and supplies from shipwrights and you want more? Isn't “incredibly wealthy” enough for you?

Is it your intention to sentance people who do not have millions to burn on your products to PVP/PVE mediocrity?

Right now, shipwrights can reverse engineer the loot drops people sell to you (going rate is about 1k per level) into other products you can sell for a profit and sometimes into SW only rewards like the Firespray (sells for about 8 million a copy on my server). On my server, any SW that simply keeps a full stock of missiles in any decent quantity or quality does extremely well.

As a casual player, I hate the weapon/armor improvement loot drops. I don't know armor or weapon smiths that I would trust enough to have specially commissioned weapons made and the rates smiths offer for raw materials is a joke. So, all those nice looted parts end up taking up space in my house. It’s not worth it to me to do anything hunt the stuff so that others can craft it into things I won’t be able to afford.

The loot drops have already been nerfed in quantity. Messing with the quality harms the majority of players while coddling an extremely wealthy minority.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

World traveler, intelligence expert, soldier of fortune, bartender and bass player, casual hero.

"Venne, vide, fuggi."

Reb-Jedi-Wanna-Be

Mon Jan 10, 2005 10:38 am

#98

styx66 wrote:

pervel wrote:

A few thoughts. While it might be a good idea to collect "evidence" to strengthen our case, I don't actually feel it should be necessary at all. The devs know exactly what the stats are on both crafted and looted parts. They also know exactly what the drop frequency of looted parts is. So I personally feel it is more important that we argue our case on why it is bad for the game that looted parts are better than crafted parts.

Technically there is one important reason that especially higher level loot will too often beat crafted parts. This has to do with reverse-engineering versus experimentation during crafting. For instance, if you RE 6 lvl 6 components, you basically have the possibility of maximising 6 stats. When experimenting, you can generally only maximise 1 stat. This in itself is a cause of unbalance for parts like engines where there are many important stats.

The fact still remains though that they like to have all their eggs in one basket. And not to knock them (devs) or anything, but its not always true that they know exactly what is happening in game. Often times it looks good in beta or on paper and turns out completely different due to a misplaced decimal point or what have you. They ship it off to live and head off to do something else (like the CU), and we get a week or two to see whats actually going on. If we have 20 posts with 5-10 replies about loot > crafted,it's hard for me to make a compelling case.

As for the RE bonuses, yeah I'm starting to see this as a problem and an obvious overcompensation of a once useless system. RE used to be very difficult and rare - needing identical items and averaging the stats. Perhaps a middle of the road option would have been better.

Loot vs. Crafted is an argument thats only heating up, and so it will be addressed. Lets help point them to the right places right off the bat so they can take a look at what is going on...

Zigmund...I totally agree with you...all my crafted items are less then what is looted...as a result, I am not selling much of anything that is lootable...and to make it sound bad about me...I use a capaciter that was looted instead of what I can make, cause it is a heck of a lot better then what a shipwright can make

Ifeel that no one should be able to loot anything above lvl 3, and that is really better then what a mstr SW can make. My point is that no one can loot anything on the ground that out performs better then a mstr...for instance...can you take out an NPC commando in one of the outposts...and loot an awesome flamer, that out does anything a mstr ws can ever make? what about taking out a moister theif...can you loot a BER20 harvestor? The answer is no, you cannot loot anything that is better then what a mstr can ever make...as you all know...99.99999999999999% of the time, you loot crap, and you end up deleting it cause it just takes up space in your inventory.

the other thing I feel (and others on ahazi server) is that in the village, why can't sw convert their shipwright xp towards the crafting fs trees...I think this might help the crafted items to be closer to the looted items.

Donnald Lightwave/Pootie Tang
Borjacovva/Buck'

Ahazi

Chiwawa

Wed Jan 12, 2005 5:13 pm

#99

Satch_of_GL wrote:
Wow, this is impressive. I have spent at least 16 million on parts and supplies from shipwrights and you want more? Isn't “incredibly wealthy” enough for you?

Is it your intention to sentance people who do not have millions to burn on your products to PVP/PVE mediocrity?

Right now, shipwrights can reverse engineer the loot drops people sell to you (going rate is about 1k per level) into other products you can sell for a profit and sometimes into SW only rewards like the Firespray (sells for about 8 million a copy on my server). On my server, any SW that simply keeps a full stock of missiles in any decent quantity or quality does extremely well.

As a casual player, I hate the weapon/armor improvement loot drops. I don't know armor or weapon smiths that I would trust enough to have specially commissioned weapons made and the rates smiths offer for raw materials is a joke. So, all those nice looted parts end up taking up space in my house. It’s not worth it to me to do anything hunt the stuff so that others can craft it into things I won’t be able to afford.

The loot drops have already been nerfed in quantity. Messing with the quality harms the majority of players while coddling an extremely wealthy minority.

This is a focus thread for Shipwrights to discuss our genuine crafting problems, please troll elsewhere

Chiwawa

Wed Jan 12, 2005 5:20 pm

#100

I am definatly with the loot drop enhancement idea, bring it into line with the ground game on that front. Not that I am saying make everything craftable better period, but the drop rates need to reflect the quality of the item. I am also still thinking that shipwright should have specializations which allow us to break what is quite a large crafting area into chunks...

Capacitors are still very broke, I just dont make them, even the loot system is broke on that front, level 2 then level 6 are the only ones worth having as far as i can tell.

Reactors are still dropping at insane gen rates with very low mass (by comparison), I know what the top bragged one is at the moment, and an average MkV hits about 50% of its rating for 100% more mass....

Nokilo

Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:25 am

#101

I ama Master Shipwright and a Master Pilot, and I have many acquiantancesin both fields as well. I will not give you my opinion. I will simply give you the facts and let you decide for yourself whether or not this needs rectification:

All 6 of my vendors have had crafted and RE components on them simultaneously. I sell about 5-7 pieces of RE equipment per day. I have never sold a single crafted component on any of my vendors.

I have 4 ships and equipment to match each one down to the last 100 mass left on the ships. I only have one crafted item on one of my ships, which is a Mark IV Shield generator.

My repeat customers and my guildmates have always requested RE parts from me. Only one person ever requested crafted items (other than launchers, ammo,paint and repairkits) and that was because they wanted the roleplaying to be accurate and did not care about performance.

I almost sold a Mark V reactor once, but the person then found a looted reactor and cancelled the order.

I have not crafted a ship component in 7 days, and I just stopped reverse engineering loot so that I could respond to this post. Once I finish this post I will return to more REing.

Nokilo, Chilastra Server

P.S. - Since I am a pilot, it is fairly straightforward to presume that if you nerf REd components to match crafted components instead of raising crafted to the standards of common loot, you will make a lot of pilots angry, and you will also unbalance the game when you consider that there are many pilots out there like me who already have the best RE on their ships.

BobaFleck

Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:50 am

#102

I've seen this a couple times in this thread -- which is cool, because I've thought of proposing it a few times, but now I'm sure I'm not just starting a pointless new thread!

I'd like to echo the idea that looted subcomponents from space would be a fun addition. Adding the equivalent of Krayt Tissues or Gorax Bone Shards could be a fun way to enhance the crafting process, while leaving pilots with loot to seek out. That is, assuming there aren't major spawn / KS issues -- but JtL seems to be better on that end than the ground game.

59995995959555995999
95999995995595955999
59555955959595955555
59555599999559959995
95995995559959559999
55999595995959595599
95995559959955959999
99959955995999599959
95559959955999959999

OmarTsalamir

Fri Feb 04, 2005 2:47 pm

#103

I would just like to make a small comment on this issue...

Loot being better than crafted Items, I can accept this to a degree...

Quite Frankly though, as a Master Pilot, I find that my ship, with the exception of my reactor, missile launcher (they dont drop as loot) and one gun, ALL of my ship components are reengineered loot.

Capacitor... I am not starting my rant here about that, but why is it that I cant craft with as low mass on anything by comparison of what I loot...

I have a level 8 Shield Gen

2555 Front and back with a 13.5 recharge

my level 7 that I took out for it, 10k Heavier

On a consistant basis I make my shipwright look like a chump, mainly because I am grinding for Firespray disks, and anything I seem to bring back, there is a little piece of gold in the part.

My engine is a level 6 that blows away anyones level 9

less than 10k Mass... 95.5 top speed, all above 65 YPR

I have come to grips with the fact that Shipwrights are apparently in SWG just for Reengineering and Chassis construction, the small matter of making launchers and packs aside, No need to state the obvious.

I found a friend who has a reactor, 35k Mass 25k Generation... NOT REENGINEERED YET!!!!

My shipwright has become a blueprint dealer, nothing more....

Pullin Stuff

Pirate King

On behalf of

Manowar Nosferatu

Slave to the Pirate King

ps. on these points

Wow, this is impressive. I have spent at least 16 million on parts and supplies from shipwrights and you want more? Isn't “incredibly wealthy” enough for you?

Is it your intention to sentance people who do not have millions to burn on your products to PVP/PVE mediocrity?

Right now, shipwrights can reverse engineer the loot drops people sell to you (going rate is about 1k per level) into other products you can sell for a profit and sometimes into SW only rewards like the Firespray (sells for about 8 million a copy on my server). On my server, any SW that simply keeps a full stock of missiles in any decent quantity or quality does extremely well.

--Excuse me Mr. I am a casual Player, when you are at the mercy of Resource sellers deciding since launch that grind quality Resources should be 10 CPU, then you have the right to complain about ship prices, especially when you are trying to grind Shipwright, My main spent EVERYDAY for about three weeks making money just to get master Shipwright, because the xp per resource used is a little more than off. I had the joy of spending 30 Mill on Material, to find out that reeng parts are better than what I can craft with some of the most sought after material to hit Naritus in the past YEAR...

sorry if that seemed bitter but as the Least Expensive Shipwright on Naritus, i think that all shipwrights needed to hear someone say it

Message Edited by OmarTsalamir on 02-04-2005 01:59 PM

Zigmund...I totally agree with you...all my crafted items are less then what is looted...as a result, I am not selling much of anything that is lootable...and to make it sound bad about me...I use a capaciter that was looted instead of what I can make, cause it is a heck of a lot better then what a shipwright can make

Ifeel that no one should be able to loot anything above lvl 3, and that is really better then what a mstr SW can make. My point is that no one can loot anything on the ground that out performs better then a mstr...for instance...can you take out an NPC commando in one of the outposts...and loot an awesome flamer, that out does anything a mstr ws can ever make? what about taking out a moister theif...can you loot a BER20 harvestor? The answer is no, you cannot loot anything that is better then what a mstr can ever make...as you all know...99.99999999999999% of the time, you loot crap, and you end up deleting it cause it just takes up space in your inventory.

Honestly, I think with testing all Crafted parts, there is only one solution that will keep people in space, Upgrade the crafted parts to make the loot not so special, except of course in rare cases... I mean quite frankly if I could not get a Cap like I have in my ship, if i had to deal with a crafted one, I would quit pilot. The Fact that My Master Shipwright Reenges better level 2 and 4 capacitors than the level 9 ones he crafts.. (LVL II Cap 40.2 recharge 1002 Cap Energy) doesnt that say something to everyone. If the game cuts loot drops down, then it takes a Firespray, which I credit value to my Customers at 5mill, not 9 mill like i see others selling them at, and makes it that much more expensive. And toning the loot down at this point would cause a riot on SOE, as new players will never be in a competing position with veteran players. The proposition to Equate Shipwrights with the majority of Loot drops seems like the most agreeable...

I would like to make a level 7 - 9 capacitor with a 40 recharge and 1002 Cap Energy

Sorry for this not being Short and Interesting as it was long and boring....

Message Edited by OmarTsalamir on 02-04-2005 02:10 PM

-Tajo-

Sun Feb 06, 2005 2:17 pm

#104

/bump

Shipwright Archive

Thread: Focus Thread: Loot Versus Craftables