Tailor Archive
Thread: Downtime Reduction for Combat Profs with Vendor Changes. Do Crafters Need Downtime Reduction?
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JediLeong
Mon Mar 21, 2005 2:51 pm
#1
An 'auto-restock-everything' button on vendors 
Not so much to do with Tailors, but still.. this is my pet peeve.
Ani_cul
Mon Mar 21, 2005 3:07 pm
#2
Replies to your points first:
1.A better survey line with less 'names for resources' I could understand each planet haveing different names, and perhaps haveing 10 that cycle thru randomly for shifts,
But a new name and stat every cycle..Theres a major time sink right there.
But a new name and stat every cycle..Theres a major time sink right there.
2.Concentrations, give us more higher % to plant and pull from..Following a line six directions to find it does not go above 40%..no thank you.
3.Since the harvestors are single lot give them a simple footprint, even if it means a pole jutting from the ground to raise it to regular level.
Dont sink high % into the city grounds! You know where the zones for player cities are, code it so the spawn happens outside these limits.
Dont sink high % into the city grounds! You know where the zones for player cities are, code it so the spawn happens outside these limits.
4.Factory wait, fine..but allow for instant craft bulk as well, it would be better then making a schem for stuff you need right away in sml qty.
(normal crafting with an option to make up to 100 items, it uses resources and a bit more time)
-nothing kills me more then realizing I just ran out of Jewelry settings and have to do a schem to run when I only need 6 right now.
(normal crafting with an option to make up to 100 items, it uses resources and a bit more time)
-nothing kills me more then realizing I just ran out of Jewelry settings and have to do a schem to run when I only need 6 right now.
5.Relist selected item at previous price option, definatly
6.I agree with paying stuff, fully.I think people should have to pay attention to bills.
But I know that nothing-nothing- updates correctly. houses pull when people pass, vendor load only when entered upon the first time etc.
But I know that nothing-nothing- updates correctly. houses pull when people pass, vendor load only when entered upon the first time etc.
7.Componants=crates=where the @#$% are they. Yup fix crates on vendors and bazaar to filter correctly.
8.Craft! My fav time sink right there...give me more options while I craft more stuff to craft..CRAFT!
So
1) In your opinion, is crafter downtime a problem? Not a problem but it can definatly be improved within each area of play.
2) What improvements could be made to remedy this problem without having a huge impact on immersion, our playstyle, or the economy?
2) What improvements could be made to remedy this problem without having a huge impact on immersion, our playstyle, or the economy?
Basiclly if the system as is could be made to function as it should (filters, maint updates etc) that would be the first huge improvement to work from.
Then what I would like? serously and honestly..
an ordering system..a form that a player could place an order with (weapon type possible stats, armor color res, clothing item BE mods, Etc etc etc..)
Something that we can see in front of us without confusion to what the customer means and wants, something they can see that defines what we can actually do.
an ordering system..a form that a player could place an order with (weapon type possible stats, armor color res, clothing item BE mods, Etc etc etc..)
Something that we can see in front of us without confusion to what the customer means and wants, something they can see that defines what we can actually do.
Tokklyym
Mon Mar 21, 2005 3:38 pm
#3
Great Post.
The most common theme in all the changes to the game in the last six months has been "Time Reduced To..."
Reduce Time Per Object in Factory Schematics This would be a benefit to all crafters, and considering the nature of the recent changes to SWG this would be on par.
My Weaponsmith friend runs a pretty small business, and she curses every new order for Grenades because they eat up all of her factory time. Her factory runs often spill into my factories, too.
Give actual Sampling capabilities to Harvester droids Once it comes back with a report, tell the droid to collect a sample of [x]this, [x]this, and [x]this.
I think, as of now, I don't have a beef with the footprints on the Harvesters. If you're laying down a 13BER Heavy that can pull up 100k+ of resources in a spawn, it should need to be in a remote, flat area sutabile for its job.
A Revamp of the Bazaar/Merchant Vendor interface We are due. Just patching the current Bazaar to allow for a Galaxy-wide search is clumsy. I tried it on TC and it is not an intuitive system, it's frustrating. It was never meant to allow for efficent searching through tens-of-thousands of items.
- Withing days of the GWVC hitting live there will be Thousands of Factory Crates.
- Empty catagories, Redundant catagories, and improperly catagorized items all hinder the experience, both for Merhcant and Customer.
- Search text. Almost every crafter labels their goods. This could make finding them again easier.
Throw a Re-List button in there, too? K? Thanks.
The most common theme in all the changes to the game in the last six months has been "Time Reduced To..."
Reduce Time Per Object in Factory Schematics This would be a benefit to all crafters, and considering the nature of the recent changes to SWG this would be on par.
My Weaponsmith friend runs a pretty small business, and she curses every new order for Grenades because they eat up all of her factory time. Her factory runs often spill into my factories, too.
Give actual Sampling capabilities to Harvester droids Once it comes back with a report, tell the droid to collect a sample of [x]this, [x]this, and [x]this.
I think, as of now, I don't have a beef with the footprints on the Harvesters. If you're laying down a 13BER Heavy that can pull up 100k+ of resources in a spawn, it should need to be in a remote, flat area sutabile for its job.
A Revamp of the Bazaar/Merchant Vendor interface We are due. Just patching the current Bazaar to allow for a Galaxy-wide search is clumsy. I tried it on TC and it is not an intuitive system, it's frustrating. It was never meant to allow for efficent searching through tens-of-thousands of items.
- Withing days of the GWVC hitting live there will be Thousands of Factory Crates.
- Empty catagories, Redundant catagories, and improperly catagorized items all hinder the experience, both for Merhcant and Customer.
- Search text. Almost every crafter labels their goods. This could make finding them again easier.
Throw a Re-List button in there, too? K? Thanks.
Akaara
Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:40 pm
#4
1. We need the ability to list several items at one time, not one at atime! If I am selling 2 (1000) factory runs of syn cloth it takes forever to list them all indivdually.
2. We need the ability to sell things in sets
3. We need a droid to go fetch items from our factories or harvesters
4. Some way to 'protect' ourselves out in the wild, near our factories/harvesters...pretty soon we won't be able to wear armor without certs.
5. I wish we could opt to create 1 to 5 items at once, instead of using a factory. SayI wanna ONLY make 5 melee defense formfitting undershirts in black, I wish we had the option to make 4 to 5 at once, with one extra button click... not big enough for a factory run, and time consuming to make 5... Surely they could let us make say 5 items at one time... this would be a time saver for sure!
6. relist button
These are all the things I think of when crafting.
Message Edited by Akaara on 03-21-2005 07:41 PM
Jutewr
Mon Mar 21, 2005 5:54 pm
#5
Akaara wrote:
6. relist button
Make this number 1 with a capital 1!
Ok, so that doesn't make any sense. 
g0nzo
Mon Mar 21, 2005 8:48 pm
#6
Jutewr wrote:
Akaara wrote:
6. relist button
Make this number 1 with a capital 1!
Ok, so that doesn't make any sense.
I second the making of it to be numero uno.
I think i made less sense than you. 
g0nzo
Mon Mar 21, 2005 9:06 pm
#7
In all seriousness, I logged in this weekend, and spent the first at least 30-40 minutes restocking, and I'M NOT DONE YET!!!!!
I finally stopped becaues i wanted to *gasp* LEAVE my shop!!! 
I think the relist button would save me a LOT of time. I actually timed it once, and from clicking on the item to relist it, not changing the price, not waiting for the picture of theitem to load in,and hitting the sell button, my computer takes 20 - 25 seconds. If I have to change the price, that adds on at least 5-10 seconds (have to wait for it to load into the screen). Not to mention the screen where it is loading it onto the vendor and our entire interface gets blocked out by the 'wait'.
For a round number, let's say it takes 30 seconds per item to relist. That gives me about 2 items relisted per minute, not counting the times when it does 'refresh' instead of selling the item, or I click too fast and it tries to sell the same item again. That means that working at maximum efficiency with no misclicks and no tells asking me if I make clothes, I can do about 120 items every hour. I have at least that many items fall off almost every other day.
I have a cable modem connection, and a brand new computer (not top of the line, but not too shabby either) and it is taking up almost all my play time to relist the items that fall into the stockroom. You can examine the clothes and see the previous price they were at, why can't we just have a button that puts it up for the exact same price? Or let us select multiple items to sell at the same price? Sometime last year I changed my prices to be more even, just to save me time and grief restocking. Now I sell most items for 500, 1k, 1.5k, 3k, 6.5k, 7k, or 8k, and even doing this, I STILL have to spend about 5 hours restocking a month (at least it seems that way). Personally, after relisting everything, I don't want to look at clothes, and I usually don't have the time/motivation toremake the things that did sell.
I do think a reduction in the factory time would be good too.
(NOOO, I haven't spent anytime thinking about the relist button AT ALL. Just ask my guildies how often I wish I was a guy so I could offer my left nut for the button. 
)
Just ask my guildies how often I wish I was a guy so I could offer my left nut for the button. )
Parody
Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:28 am
#8
Because of the very low variety of resources we need, Tailors have a relatively low downtime compared to other classes. SWGCraft speeds things up for those who do.
However, I also believe that resource hunting is part of the challenge for crafters in SWG. Otherwise, why not just dump the blue frogs down and let them hand out resources for the crafters?
I think the factory times are fine (they scale by complexity). Auto-deduct maintenance was (IMHO) a cop-out for not being able to get the email reminders working properly. I've lost groups of heavy harvesters and reactors to maintenance because I forgot to check them in time; the reminders didn't get sent until they had 1% remaining. While it was completely my fault for not checking them earlier, having the reminders in there right away when it ran out of maintenance would have been a big help. As it is, I have an empty factory out on Dathomir sucking money out of my account because I've been too lazy to go pick it up.
The one thing I do think that needs changing is listing merchandise. Unlike surveying, here you're not usually doing anything active or making any decisions: you're just copy/pasting the description text out of your notepad repeatedly.
This is also a good place to give the Merchants a bone too. All people with vendors should get a relist button in the Details window for an item in a Stockroom and in the context menu of items in the Stockroom list. This brings up the Sell window with the price and description filled in. Master Merchants should get a Relist All button in the Stockroom that resells everything at its original price with its original description. You could break it up further: Relist at Novice Merchant, Relist All (this vendor only) at Something in Merchant III, and Relist All (all vendors) at Master.
I don't think the issue is with crafting downtime, as much of what you listed is (IMHO) intended to be part of the crafting playstyle. I think the issue is that they've taken away (at least post-CURB) many of the Combat downtimes. They might want to put some back...or we could just accept that various classes involve different playstyles. You could also be part crafter, part combat guy and get the best of both worlds. (Says the Tailor/Carbineer.
However, I also believe that resource hunting is part of the challenge for crafters in SWG. Otherwise, why not just dump the blue frogs down and let them hand out resources for the crafters?
I think the factory times are fine (they scale by complexity). Auto-deduct maintenance was (IMHO) a cop-out for not being able to get the email reminders working properly. I've lost groups of heavy harvesters and reactors to maintenance because I forgot to check them in time; the reminders didn't get sent until they had 1% remaining. While it was completely my fault for not checking them earlier, having the reminders in there right away when it ran out of maintenance would have been a big help. As it is, I have an empty factory out on Dathomir sucking money out of my account because I've been too lazy to go pick it up.
The one thing I do think that needs changing is listing merchandise. Unlike surveying, here you're not usually doing anything active or making any decisions: you're just copy/pasting the description text out of your notepad repeatedly.
This is also a good place to give the Merchants a bone too. All people with vendors should get a relist button in the Details window for an item in a Stockroom and in the context menu of items in the Stockroom list. This brings up the Sell window with the price and description filled in. Master Merchants should get a Relist All button in the Stockroom that resells everything at its original price with its original description. You could break it up further: Relist at Novice Merchant, Relist All (this vendor only) at Something in Merchant III, and Relist All (all vendors) at Master.
I don't think the issue is with crafting downtime, as much of what you listed is (IMHO) intended to be part of the crafting playstyle. I think the issue is that they've taken away (at least post-CURB) many of the Combat downtimes. They might want to put some back...or we could just accept that various classes involve different playstyles. You could also be part crafter, part combat guy and get the best of both worlds. (Says the Tailor/Carbineer.
Message Edited by Parody on 03-22-2005 01:38 AM
NJ62
Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:27 am
#9
With the vendor changes, it is clear that shopping for goods is a major time-suck. It is simply too draining on the time of a combatant to spend upward of two hours trying to find the goods he/she needs, probably once a week. I get that. I hate doing a wild goose chase too.
So what about the crafter's downtime? It's pretty much the same as before.
The schism between crafters and combatants in terms of in-game time has always been wide, with crafters having to constantly monitor factories, harvesters, and stock levels. The schism just got a whole lot wider with the new bazaar listing system, which decreases downtime for combatants. The improvements to decrease downtime for crafters has been surveying from bikes, and one-minute shuttle times (which really benefit everyone equally).
It seems unfair to me that combatant downtime is being chipped away, while crafter downtime is left marvelously intact. Factories continue to plod away slowly and the resource game has become no easier even with survey droids.
So my questions to you are:
So what about the crafter's downtime? It's pretty much the same as before.
1. Approximately once every few days, you have to check for rare resources, resources that you need to make what you want. Now, not just your planet, either. At least with JTL and one-minute shuttles, the planet hops aren't too bad, but still... planet-hopping isn't that much fun. It's not that quick either.
2. Then you have to sample the resource to see if it's any good. So you have to find a reasonable concentration.
3. Then comes the fun part: surveying to plant your harvesters. Finding a concentration where it's flat, not in the middle of a city (npc or player) and not in the middle of a lair of nasty creatures can take a while, even surveying from a bike.
4. There's no way to know if something is going to shift, so you have to continue to check every few days while mining. Plus, you have to periodically empty the hopper.
5. Put stuff into the factory. Wait for it. Then put more stuff in the factory. Wait for it.
6. Check vendors. List every item by hand. Relist every item every 30 days.
7. Pay stuff periodically. Vendors, houses, factories. Or you could let it auto-deduct and get a nasty surprise when your bank account is drained unexpectedly.
8. (Optional) Find components. Buy components. If they're listed on the bazaar that would be great. They're probably not. You'll probably have to wheedle someone into it.
9. You get to craft. For real.
The schism between crafters and combatants in terms of in-game time has always been wide, with crafters having to constantly monitor factories, harvesters, and stock levels. The schism just got a whole lot wider with the new bazaar listing system, which decreases downtime for combatants. The improvements to decrease downtime for crafters has been surveying from bikes, and one-minute shuttle times (which really benefit everyone equally).
It seems unfair to me that combatant downtime is being chipped away, while crafter downtime is left marvelously intact. Factories continue to plod away slowly and the resource game has become no easier even with survey droids.
So my questions to you are:
1) In your opinion, is crafter downtime a problem? and
2) What improvements could be made to remedy this problem without having a huge impact on immersion, our playstyle, or the economy?
Edited for formatting and pretty colors
Message Edited by NJ62 on 03-21-2005 04:04 PM
Gyopi
Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:35 am
#10
Personally I don't mind a lot of the downtime, although it is a shame that for part of the player base downtime is being treated as a bad thing and for the rest of us it is thought to be a good thing. Anyway, as long as it is not tedious I don't mind not getting everything I want instantly. I *would* add a few things though that are just completely tiresome.
1) We need a relist button on our vendors! Relisting items is so clunky that surely any developer who had to relist a few hundred items would see the problem almost instantly.
2) Image designable vendors. I don't want to scare away customers and I don't want to spend an hour trying to get a random vendor to look decent instead of having lime green lips and a hot pink mohawk. It would also give image designers something viable to make money from.
3) Maintenence droids and binary load lifters that actually do something! It would make myself and most DEs very happy.
4) Persistant vendors. I am on a low traffic server and if it resets or if no one happens to go past my vendor at night then the vendor unloads and I have to go visit all my vendors in the morning to reload them and get them back on the map. I am not sure of how this will work with vendor searches so it might not be a problem.
5) An anonymous feature. I can't do anything if I am in constant tell hell.
Akaara
Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:49 am
#11
You should be able to relist ALL OFyour items from any vendor. I can relist mine from my workshop instead of going to each vendor.
adam2975
Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:00 am
#12
Ok yeah so number 1 priority for me is the relist all button but i also have a second gripe with factory timings.
I am just picking up AS and needed to run some Mabari armour segments so i load in the schem and off it goes at 96 per seg, now in the next factory i set some synth cloth going which are going to take 120 per cloth???? How does a bit of cloth take longer to produce than a segment of armour?
Another example of this is that some clothing items take longer to produce in a factory than a swoop does, i think the timings need looking at accross the board.
I am just picking up AS and needed to run some Mabari armour segments so i load in the schem and off it goes at 96 per seg, now in the next factory i set some synth cloth going which are going to take 120 per cloth???? How does a bit of cloth take longer to produce than a segment of armour?
Another example of this is that some clothing items take longer to produce in a factory than a swoop does, i think the timings need looking at accross the board.
ItemCreator
Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:55 am
#13
I can pretty much put up with all the downtimes of crafting except the blasted vendor relisting which we all seem to hate
If there is one thing that will make me quit tailoring this year that would be it. Customers I can handle, global searching I can handle, but being punished for wanting to provide a good choice of clothing in my vendors is really starting to get to me.
Kel
If there is one thing that will make me quit tailoring this year that would be it. Customers I can handle, global searching I can handle, but being punished for wanting to provide a good choice of clothing in my vendors is really starting to get to me.
Kel
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