Weaponsmith Archive

Thread: Focus Thread: Regaining the Challenge

Summerflame
Fri Sep 30, 2005 4:18 am
#1


It has been about 4 months since the CU hit. And we begin to be able to see the effects the whole change has had on our

profession.


Im writing this thread with two things in mind.


  1. Pinpoint the exact problem/problems

  2. Finding solutions to these.

I would Like to bring to the devs attention the fact that the WS profession is left without goals to continously strive for (A lot of Weaponsmiths has allready double capped most popular weapons.and I want your opinions, idea on the matter first. Reaching endgame shouldnt be possible in a MMORPG and that it is so relatively easy to reach our endgoal (making the best weapons possible (if this should be our endgame is for another discussion, but atm it is)) is very damaging for our profession and for the game as whole.


One thing that seems evident is that we have been restricted in a lot of ways. (Feel free to add anything you find missing, but keep on topic please )



  • Hardcaps

  • Damage types were cut down to two

  • Weapon Rewards that we can not craft

These restrictions are not only hurtfull to our own profession, but is also hurtfull for the overall gameplay for everyone.

Hardcaps and lack of damage types promotes a uniformity that is unfun for everyone.


Furthermore the Hardcaps and Lack of damage types is a strict barrier for further improvements and development of the ingame

character leading to lack of goals and lack of uniqueness.


For weaponsmiths these restrictions also leads to lack of goals and thus to boredom.


Please list in this thread any solution you can come up with that could bring back diversity and give Weaponsmiths some

goals to continously work for.


Bear in mind when you write your solution that we are not the sole profession in this game and take those other professions into consideration when you come up with a solution. While we do fight for our own profession first it doesnt hurt ot take other professions into account Something that would help us, butseverely damage a lot of other professions is not a viable solution.

Message Edited by Summerflame on 09-30-2005 01:19 PM



----------[N*W]Weaponry (+2 and FS)----------
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Summerflame
Fri Sep 30, 2005 4:20 am
#2



My ideas to Solutions


(Note: Most of these has been aired by me or others on the boards before )


Hardcaps



  • Remove the hardcaps completely and put the cap on enhancers instead. Only reason that overpowered weapons existed pre CU was either exceptional weapons or exceptional components.



  • Make Softcaps instead of hard caps. This could be done in one of two ways:


  1. Make the caps work of diminishing returns once you proceed over the set caps that we have atm. That way you could still improve upon exactly the line you wanted, but the effect would be as high once they reached above the set cap and thus couldnt become overpowered.

  2. Make weapons experimentation work like pup experimentation. After crossing the caps that are in place now, putting more points in that line would result in raising another line. Ex. putting points in the damage line would raise the SAC


Damage Types.


Reintroduce Resist.

Then make Elemental damage mean more. This could be done as follows.



Example: Player x wants a weapon he can use for kraythunting. Krayts have 90% resistance against heat meaning your weapon will do 90% less damge if you are using heat), but are 20% vulnerable towards Cold (meaning your attacks will do 20% extra damage if you are using a weapon with cold damage.)


Introducing new enhancers to tune your weapon towards a certain element. Enhancers could be +600 Heat damage -400 ordinary

damage (to keep it balanced)



Example: Player x goes to his WS with a +500 Cold elemental damage -300 ordinary damage enhancer (this goes instead of krayt

tissues/enhanced power Cells, Reinforced Casings/Gorax shards). The WS makes an ALR that comes out with 685 max dam and 500 Cold

elemental damage (the - to ordinary damge is necessary to get the elemental up in a number that would make a noticable

difference without unbalancing the weapon).

Player x will now have a weapon that against Krayts would be very viable, but when he wants to hunt Crazed Geonosians he has a

problem. They have 60% Cold resistance, but 40% Electricity Vulnerability. Player x starts hunting Electricity Enhancers, to

get yet another weapon made.

In this way players would allmost need a weapon for each elemental damage type. This would create new loot for the combattants.

New weapons for us to craft. A lot more weapon variaty. Possibly more content for AS aswell as they could also have enhancers

for their armour protecting against different kinds of elemental damage (which of course would lower the resists on some of the

other types to keep it balanced).


Weapon Rewards we can not craft

This is pretty easy to solve



  1. Let all rewards be schematics instead

  2. Let the player choose between a finished weapon or a schematic (the WS should of course be able to make asuperior weapon from the schematic)

  3. Introduce some sort of reingeneerig. Example. I get hold of a Proton Carbine. Reingeneering it would grant me 1 piece of a permanent schematic and the Carbine would of course be destroyed in the process. Using 5 Carbines I would perhaps get 3 out of the 6 pieces needed, the other 2 would have been some I allready had, but that could be exchanged with other crafters.

Creating More diversity like all the suggestens above would do if introduced would not only benefit the weaponsmith, but also

the people using weapons.

Message Edited by Summerflame on 09-30-2005 01:26 PM



----------[N*W]Weaponry (+2 and FS)----------
@Danevang City Corellia 3434 -5534 and Danevang Mall 3325 -5633@
{{{Summerflame k Nalai{{{
{{{Angelic deliverer of Pboys pimp weapons{{{



Janann
Fri Sep 30, 2005 4:54 am
#3



Your ideas are pretty much the same I have had in my mind. The whole profession has lost very much of it's challenge after the hardcaps came which are too easy to reach. So hardcaps should be increased, not much, but a little bit.


Another maybe bigger problem is that only asmall amount of weaponsare sensible to craft. People level so fast that grinding weapons are hardly worth of making. Many master weapons are also so poor compared to quest rewards they are almost obsolete. For example I used to be a popular person among TKAs but now I have lost all my TKA customers, they are not very interested even in Blaster Fists. Definitely weapon rewards should be schematics or use thesystemNalai represented.


The third problem is the anti-decay kit. Just make them a capped weapon and you won't see them very soon again However, it's such an item it can't be removed just like that, people love it and they hate nerfs, so unfortunately I don't have a good solution for this problem. They should have been non-tradable for example, not sure.


All these combined with the fact that the population is more and more crafters and Jedi, we have been a dying profession, just a shadow what we werefor example oneyear ago.

Message Edited by Janann on 09-30-2005 02:59 PM



_________________________________
Janann
guild leader of

GrooperNugent
Fri Sep 30, 2005 5:04 am
#4

I have thought from day one that creature resists going *poof* was a bad Idea. As elemental damage is already in the game, a simple solution to increase variety might be to increase the elemental damage increase when experimenting on elemental damage...maybe to the detriment of max. damage so as not to unbalance. So you could build a very high acid damage sword (for example) that didn't necessarily have a ridiculous max. dam, but the decreased resistance to acid in armor would allow for a better PvP weapon. The previously stated elemental enhancers would be great too.


And IF we could get creature resists back into the game, well there's another great big use for some of the lesser used weapons.





Grooper/LEEROY
*Fishstick* Weapons
-1656, 4483 Babylon, Dantooine Mining Outpost
Asir_SWG
Fri Sep 30, 2005 6:11 am
#5

Another issue to add is possibly the lack of choice in weapons, with 95% of the player base the only option is a level 50 or 54 weapon some professions only have a one or two logical options... This is a definite backward step since pre CU.

Caps, keep the SAC and speed caps because I can see this being a little unbalanced to the game to remove, but the damage caps should be loosened up somewhat... The idea that you can double cap a weapon is just silly, even with top end enhancers in the game it should be that you have to choose either / or, but not both. With the state of enhancers (with top end ever seen post CU about 200 ish) there is not a case that you can unbalance the game if you remove the caps..



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rotezora
Fri Sep 30, 2005 6:37 am
#6

omw driving up to you flame, lets have some babies !



seriously all the issues i would like to see addressed. lemme throw in what we talked about yesterday.



raise caps for like 10% could make high end smithing more intersting and rewardingly again.


further add all schematics or add aRE'ing type of thing like the SW's have.


elemental dmg would definatly be a good choice also - and i bet AS would like to see that too.








¬ Parth Galen ________ Dark Jedi Guardian
¬ Eky________________ 12pt WS .: Force Crafting Mastery .: 55Assembly 35XP
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GrooperNugent
Fri Sep 30, 2005 6:52 am
#7






rotezora wrote:

omw driving up to you flame, lets have some babies !



elemental dmg would definatly be a good choice also - and i bet AS would like to see that too.


Oooh, yeah...didn't think about how it would affect them...cool. Taking the damage types out of the picture was a really boneheaded move. Why make a complex combat system simpler? Guess it jibes witht the whole 'dumbing down the game' concept.












Grooper/LEEROY
*Fishstick* Weapons
-1656, 4483 Babylon, Dantooine Mining Outpost
spincrus
Fri Sep 30, 2005 7:17 am
#8


My ideas:



Quest rewards MUST, MUST, MUST be given as schematics and single components (to prevent the amassing of those weapons and still keep them unique).


Resistances coming back to a certain extent. To make things easier, this could be made such that a creature has either "noresist", "low resist","medium resist", "high resist" and "very high resist" towards a certain elemental damage type, all being consequently 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 90%(that being the cap, so that you can't be invulnerable to heat, but creatures on Mustafar, for example, would be at 90% for heat, 0% for cold). There are only heat, cold, acid and electricity left anyway. So, when hunting NPC BH marks for example, who should be using a HLR, because BH marks should spawn with low-to-none electricity resists, giving a meaning to the weapon being for BH.


Make enhancers which give additional elemental damage bonuses. Maybe introduce an enhancement socket to the barrel during crafting? So blaster barrels would require "whatever tissues" or "something bones" or "something accelerator" or whatever, and a projectile barrel would require different things. These should give +15-50 to elemental damage and that should be it.


Introducea new enhancer and call it "something capacitor", it should be put into the ABPHs, giving lower SAC and speed reductions (but still giving those to a certain extent), but giving higher damage increase.


Change the krayt tissues so that they give SAC reduction. Their new stats should be the same damage range, lower SAC reduction, but a higher speed reduction.


(The above two suggestions are to create a DIFFERENCE between enhancements, instead of making one enhancement less valuable than the other, as it is in the case of power cells > krayt tissues right now).



Make ADKs automatically bio-linked once it's on the person's posession, or once the person gets it through the veteran reward system. They should not be tradable, and the people should be FORCED to either use it on a bandolier with nice attachments OR their weapon - but not trade them around so that they use them on both and never require our services again.


WHY AUTOMATICALLY BIO-LINK ADK? Because those who sell their ADKs are usually people who won't be needing them, as they don't have too much money to buy our high-end weapons anyway. But, once you allow these players to trade their ADKs to others, the players WITH money, our REAL customer base for the high-end weapons, will never, ever require our services again. And the ones who sold their ADKs aren't interested in buying our high-end products anyway.



Well, that's it for me for now I think.

Oh! Forgot: T21 and Advanced Laser Rifle should have differences. T21 should come out with lower speed upon crafting, OR have heat damage +20 or so, OR should be introduced to have a scope component PLUS a speed reduction. It's the MRifleman weapon! Same with the MPistoleer weapons and MCarbineer weapon being different from the others.


I have to say, though, kinetic weapons such as the Berserker Rifle should also be made better.




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Summerflame
Fri Sep 30, 2005 7:30 am
#9






spincrus wrote:


My ideas:



Quest rewards MUST, MUST, MUST be given as schematics and single components (to prevent the amassing of those weapons and still keep them unique).


Resistances coming back to a certain extent. To make things easier, this could be made such that a creature has either "noresist", "low resist","medium resist", "high resist" and "very high resist" towards a certain elemental damage type, all being consequently 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 90%(that being the cap, so that you can't be invulnerable to heat, but creatures on Mustafar, for example, would be at 90% for heat, 0% for cold). There are only heat, cold, acid and electricity left anyway. So, when hunting NPC BH marks for example, who should be using a HLR, because BH marks should spawn with low-to-none electricity resists, giving a meaning to the weapon being for BH.


Make enhancers which give additional elemental damage bonuses. Maybe introduce an enhancement socket to the barrel during crafting? So blaster barrels would require "whatever tissues" or "something bones" or "something accelerator" or whatever, and a projectile barrel would require different things. These should give +15-50 to elemental damage and that should be it.


Introducea new enhancer and call it "something capacitor", it should be put into the ABPHs, giving lower SAC and speed reductions (but still giving those to a certain extent), but giving higher damage increase.


Change the krayt tissues so that they give SAC reduction. Their new stats should be the same damage range, lower SAC reduction, but a higher speed reduction.


How about giving them a min damage bonus instead of sac reduction to further differentiate them from the cells? (just something I thought off while reading your post )


(The above two suggestions are to create a DIFFERENCE between enhancements, instead of making one enhancement less valuable than the other, as it is in the case of power cells > krayt tissues right now).



Make ADKs automatically bio-linked once it's on the person's posession, or once the person gets it through the veteran reward system. They should not be tradable, and the people should be FORCED to either use it on a bandolier with nice attachments OR their weapon - but not trade them around so that they use them on both and never require our services again.


WHY AUTOMATICALLY BIO-LINK ADK? Because those who sell their ADKs are usually people who won't be needing them, as they don't have too much money to buy our high-end weapons anyway. But, once you allow these players to trade their ADKs to others, the players WITH money, our REAL customer base for the high-end weapons, will never, ever require our services again. And the ones who sold their ADKs aren't interested in buying our high-end products anyway.



Well, that's it for me for now I think.

Oh! Forgot: T21 and Advanced Laser Rifle should have differences. T21 should come out with lower speed upon crafting, OR have heat damage +20 or so, OR should be introduced to have a scope component PLUS a speed reduction. It's the MRifleman weapon! Same with the MPistoleer weapons and MCarbineer weapon being different from the others.


I have to say, though, kinetic weapons such as the Berserker Rifle should also be made better.










----------[N*W]Weaponry (+2 and FS)----------
@Danevang City Corellia 3434 -5534 and Danevang Mall 3325 -5633@
{{{Summerflame k Nalai{{{
{{{Angelic deliverer of Pboys pimp weapons{{{



RWC
Fri Sep 30, 2005 8:31 am
#10

I like the idea of removing the hardcaps and giving us more involvment in the weapon rewards and I agree that something should be done about the ADK problem although I dont have any specific ideas what.

Personally I think we should work with the Armoursmiths and try to get the Elemental damage system upgraded/fixed/changed. I think players should have to think more about which weapon they use for a specific situation and that would lead back to us and the Armoursmiths creating more focused weapons and armour.

Another thing I would like to see is a greater range of weapons available to all players. I agree we have a problem now of having 1 or 2 weapons worth using in each profession. I would like to see a system where any weapon could be worth using by any combat level but not allowing lower level players to use weapons that are as good as those used by high level players. I have a few ideas about this but dont want to throw this thread off topic too much.

So basically my list would be

Remove the hardcaps
Make elemental damage worth using
Make a much greater range of weapons worth using
hightyebeets
Fri Sep 30, 2005 8:44 am
#11

some good ideas.



one of the major problems was the high drop rates of enhanced power cells from bh missions. they were highly abundant very overpowered, with these enhancers double and triple capping is relatively easy. When it was krayt tissues the drop rate of high end tissue was very low and this meant that it took effort to get the pieces also.



then adk's as has already been stated meant that nobody needs a replacement weapon anymore.






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Munitionsmaster
Fri Sep 30, 2005 8:51 am
#12

What about letting the WS choose if a weapon had elemental damage and what kind it would be (thus leading to many many more styles of weapons). Also vuln/resist should come back because it would allow there to be better weapons for every situation instead of one gun to blow them all away...



Ternel-

Former Master Weaponsmith for over 2 years
Citizen of the Tempest Server
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of them are stupider than that." -George Carlin

rotezora
Fri Sep 30, 2005 9:36 am
#13

oh and something that we all wantfor a long time


lets us customize our weapons. choose scope/stock appearance as well as color of the gun itself and the bolts.


or let smugglers do it, im fine with that too.






¬ Parth Galen ________ Dark Jedi Guardian
¬ Eky________________ 12pt WS .: Force Crafting Mastery .: 55Assembly 35XP
DarkSideDefenders
Eky's Smite on the Anvil
[DSD]FanShop, Theed -4100 3400
.: Stock :. .: Weapon Compendium :. .: QUNAAWS :.

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