Smuggler Archive
Thread: The Debate: Slicing Experimentation
In order to keep the poll free from clutter, lets debate this hot topic here!
I'm a strong proponent to slicing experimentation because I see it as a way for smugglers to distinguish themselves from the pack. Crafters are sought for their abilities to find the best resources when they pop up, hire the harvesters to get it, and to master their craft to increase their final stats.
You all know what happened to architects... its like a new profession! They went from BER7 heavies and BER4 mediums to BER13 heavies and BER10 mediums with the right resources.
I don't know about you, but I want a shot at the ever elusive 45% weapon damage slice if I can get the best stuff together and find the best weapon smith to make me the best WUKs.
On another note, we already can experiment on our slicing tools... they don't seem to do anything yet. Looks like the spice experimentation mods are being used for slice experiments.
Smuggler_Caylin wrote:
but no matter the results of this poll, only 5% of the smuggler population will most likely even participate in it.
Not experimenting on goods is a boon to the class, not a hindrance or some name like that.
I am the guy everyone hated for speaking his mind and going pro experimentation.
One of the Four Horsemen of the Smuggler Apocalypse! 
As I said in the poll, Experimentation is great, but it should not be tied to advancement.
We should all, upon hitting novice, get 10 or 7 or however many number of experimentation points and this should not change AT ALL as you advance. I play as a weaponsmith with my toon as well as a smuggler, and I know the evils of gated quality along with gated everything else. In weaponsmithing, novices can make VERY few items, and almost none of them are useful or wanted by the market. Not only that, but when they do make them, the quality of these items is crap because of the techniques tree.
We should be focused primarily on smuggling. As such, our primary skill control should come in the Underworld tree, and advancement along THAT tree should be what counts the most for our profession. At the same time, slicing should have some benefit for advances. Well, guess what, it already does. Dinian posted a description of the concept of Smuggling Base. This is your base skill level, like the max of 35% that Masters get on weapon slices. Your base would be affected by the quality of your tools. So, if you have tools that are extremely high quality, but you have low skills, you can still operate reasonably well. If you have high skills and high quality tools, you can operate even better. But, if you have low skills and low quality tools (as a result of crappy experimentation abilities at low levels) then you are doubly screwed.
I expect that some people, as in the weaponsmith profession, will say "Hey man, just work harder. I EARNED my right to make better tools because I ground out to master." I disagree. I've seen the effects that this has. It's already tough enough to get business at Slicing II in the current environment. Imagine that a Slice II player was gimped in terms of the tools he could make too? You have to allow lower level players to participate in the economy, and let's face it: containers doesn't cut it.
Besides, while hard work should count, there's plenty of hard work that comes into play already, outside of how many experimentation points you get at the various levels. As in weaponsmithing or any other crafting profession, the quality of your resources (which you must either collect or buy with your hard earned money), will necessarily affect the quality of your tools. Knowing WHAT resources to collect will be one of the true tests of hard work and skill, and it'd be independent of how far you'd ground.
Similarly, hard work already is rewarded in the form of the SLicing Base. Masters will ALWAYS have the potential toslice for higher than everyone below them. Why? Because their base is higher. And they earned that right and more power to 'em for it. But, masters should not also be able to corner the market on tool crafting quality.
Experimentation is great, but it should be a constant once you hit novice. You get 10 experimentation points to do with as you please, and that never changes. As you increase in the slicing tree, it's your BASE that increases, NOT your ability to experiment on the tools. Hard work is rewarded through progression in the slicing tree in the form of your Base, and when dealing with experimentation, from your willingness to work hard to get the best resources for your tools and spend the time crafting them.
One other thing. I'm a Slicer already. I'm not a Master yet, but I can slice perfectly well. I also know how to craft things as I play a crafting class with my smuggler toon as well. I've learned the system, learned what attributes to look for, etc. I've done my hard work and I'd be in good shape to reap the benefits if experimentation went live today. I'm making this suggestion for the novices and the folks who play at a level below me. My way of seeing it is that I've already made it and that I already have plenty of advantages. I can make my own clamps, so I never fail a slice. I've learned a crafting trade so I know what attributes count and what to look for. I've got a good Base as a Slicer, so while Masters can do it better than me, I still get plenty of business. But the novices? If experimentation points are tied to advancement, they'll get screwed, and that's not cool. Besides, they'll hardly be a threat to masters, Slicers, or really anyone above them. This just gives them more of a chance -- if you're a novice who busts his ass to get good resources and spends the time experimenting to get the perfect tool schematic, you deserve a break; you worked for it. Novices have a hard enough time as it is. And I don't need to corner the market any. I do just fine on my own.
Anyway, I hope that you guys see what I'm getting at here, as I'm starting to ramble some...
So, wait, are you saying that you think smugglers should get more experimentation as they get higher? I disagree strongly with that.
A master should get a bonus for investing time and effort and skill points. No more no less. Look, once I get the ability to make a precision laser knife, how much "mastery" do you need to make it better? Experimentation being gated doesn't make sense for ANYONE and I've always maintained that position. Gating schematics AND experimentation is ruthless, pointless, and only encourages more grinding (which inevitably puts MORE competitive strain on the masters than they realize in their shortsightedness).
We already have gated schematics. You can do laser knives at novice, FANs at Slice II, and clamps at Slice IV. That rewards investment of time, energy, and skill points plenty. We've also got gated improvement of the underlying slicing skill as you progress up the tree, with masters being inherently superior.
Rewarding hard work can come from people who invest more time and energy into crafting the ultimate tool. Besides, even with experimentation being constant and everyone having 10 points to spend, you'd still have to account for luck of the draw, where you built your stuff, crafting tool/station quality, etc. Investment and effort shows in those aspects as well. Masters have plenty of advantages over novices, so gimping novices further by making what they can craft be crappy quality is just goofy. It's goofy in Weaponsmithing, armorsmithing, and smuggling. Why? Because it makes it impossible for the novice to compete -- all they can do is grind and wait until they can enter the market. This only encourages them to grind it out to master, at which point EVERYONE is a master.
I'm not going to get into a debate on the weaponsmith issue right now, but I've thought a LOT about it, and I generally tend to disagree with pretty much ALL of the weaponsmith community (or at least all the masters out there -- which is pretty much all the weaponsmith community outside of hologrinders). Regardless, I see no benefit for masters in having TOTAL dominance of the market.
I still say experimentation is great, but should be a flat rate once you hit novice. If you take the time to experiment, take the time to collect the proper materials, and bother to pay attention to what makes for good materials, you should benefit in the form of better tools, REGARDLESS of what level you are, and I'll stick by that position.
Solo4114 wrote:
We already have gated schematics. You can do laser knives at novice, FANs at Slice II, and clamps at Slice IV. That rewards investment of time, energy, and skill points plenty.
Slicing tools are not gated at all; you can buy whatever gear you want.
Dinian,
The poll was at the top so I'm afraid I cluttered it a bit. Sorry about that... I have an alt that has novice weaponsmith and armorsmith to support my shop. On the kits...
The schematics are granted at novice. The expirimentation points come from artisan. Currently, to make the "best" kit, you need to be a master artisan.
A master artisan might spend the 6-12 pts to pick up armor and weapons just to make the kits and might not charge that much for them. As it is now, I would say a majority of the kits I see are really made by smugglers, their alts, or smiths that have not mastered the profession. If expirimentation is factored in, the real questions for me will be:
Who gets the schematic?
What is the source of the expirimentation?
What percentage of the roll is based on which item?
I know it is much easier to have a cut and dried yes and no but how many would want expirimentation if only that of the kits played a factor? How many would want it if weapons and armorexpirimentation was used instead of artisan? (meaning we have to pay master weaponsmith prices and get them from a master to have the best).
electricnomad wrote:
Solo4114 wrote:
We already have gated schematics. You can do laser knives at novice, FANs at Slice II, and clamps at Slice IV. That rewards investment of time, energy, and skill points plenty.
Slicing tools are not gated at all; you can buy whatever gear you want.
If Clamps and FANS required certifications to use, then you'd have a point, but I disagree that there's a huge reward for advancement when it comes to tools. You can always buy your way to the tools with cash rather than skillpoints.
Yeah, but you can't make them yourself, and what smuggler is going to sell his tools for anything less than highway robbery prices? I know I sure wouldn't, unless it was a friend or trusted business associate. The major benefit to advancement is the base slicing ability and the ability to be self-sufficient and craft your own stuff. In that sense, tools are gated -- you can't MAKE your own clamps until Slice IV. Sure, people sell 'em all over, but that's their choice. Personally, I wouldn't sell or give away clamps to anyone but a guild mate or close friend.
Actually, come to think of it, the only tools where quality should matter are the knives and WUKs. We don't even MAKE WUKs, weaponsmiths do (that I happen to be a weaponsmith is just convenient for me). We do make our own knives, though, but we make them at novice level, so it makes sense that we'd be able to experiment on them fully at novice level. Actually, knife experimentation appears to be tied to artisan XP, as I've got seven points to spend on knives when I make 'em. Those come directly from my mastery of the engineer line, I believe. Same goes for WUKs, Fans, and Clamps. I can dump seven experimentation points into all of them at the moment, and that hasn't changed for quite some time.
Anyway, I think that, for WUKs and knives, quality should count. For clamps and FANs, though, the only thing you use them for is to tell you WHAT to slice, not to affect the final outcome, so their experimental value doesn't really seem to make much sense, and frankly, I'd rather NOT have FAN or Clamp accuracy tied to experimental value.
To my way of thinking, experimental value is supposed to affect the FINAL outcome of a slice -- IE: the percentage increase. Therefore, only certain tools should be counted for this: knives and WUKs/AUKs. Since you get knives at novice and novice weaponsmiths/armorsmiths get WUKs/AUKs, I see no reason to gate experimentation ability when there are other factors that can help novices. There's no point in making their job harder than it is already.
Actually experimentation of slicing tools come from spice experimentation and assembly. I only have Spices 2 and it give me 6 exp point to play with. The exeption is WUK's were I got all 11 of my artisian points to make (not my 7 weaponcrafting points; strange). The weird thing about making PLK's is they give 36 general crafting experience that artisians use; I always thought this was also odd. I think they need to fix all of this.
If they stick with 'A' no experimentation then they need to remove it all together like they have done with clothing and food containers. But, to aliviate this choice they need to add a new tool (preferable at master and maybe certified there) to pick our slice directly saving us and/or customerfrustration and time.
If they go with 'B' and implement experimentation then perhaps the quality of tools we use could affect theslice andgive us either: better percentages OR the improved chance to choose the type of slice. I'd prefer the choice of type myself. Also, consider that WUK's (or any of our tools) do not show an effectiveness rating of any kind indicating quality.
All of our tools use conductivity for experimentation right now and since any non-ferrous metal will do it is not difficult to get decent resources (copper) to work with. All copper has a minimum of 500 conductivity with some having much higher minimums:Platinite copper has a min of 900+. I find Mythra copper to be up there too. I don't see much problems with materials unless they throw a wrench into the schematics. Even clamps require mear metal.
I'd prefer experimentation, but I'd be happy either way if they would just clean up this messy confusion and make it a little easier for us choose the slice. Even if it meant placing certifications on the tools and change it so that making them gives some slicing experience.