Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: The gap between Novice and Master
samijx wrote:
Institute the same rules that Shipwrights have to endure as far as factories go. Allow a factory to mass produce sub-components, but not final products. Master weaponsmiths will not want to make 1000's of hand crafted weapons, thus opening up a market for less that perfect weapons.
This will make me and basically almost all weaponsmiths quit. Weapons are bought in bulk because the customer would like to maximize something or go through alot of them. Ships are not bought in bulk because you don't go through them as quickly and the cost would be high very high. Basically making people hand craft final compiles would alienate A LOT of the elite crafters in all professions. I simply don't have the time to hand craft the amount of weapons I sell, and if I did have to hand craft everything I wouldn't have been weaponsmith this long simply because it would stop me from playing any other part of the game. I contested the hand crafting part of shipwright things, I think it forces crafters to generally devote way to much time into a single thing which will lead to a high burn out rate and eventually lesser quality goods.
Anyways on to the topic of the thread. Why shouldn't there be a gap between Master and Novice? Personally I am a Master, so maybe I am biased, no most likely I am biased. But basically you give every master the same resources and they generally come out with the same product. So, now you want to include people who don't even go to master in the pool? This is too much in my opinion. Now I have had many ideas on how to change it, like dividing experimentation into melee/ranged/munitions and putting them in their respective trees so you can "specialize".
All in all, I don't believe the gap should be bridged. Once again I am biased. But seriously speaking, why should a novice weaponsmith be able to compete with a master on any level or any schematics. I know it would promote dabbling, but seriously to be an elite weaponsmith on any server you can usually only burden yourself with weaponsmith, and some people do one other task but I ask, where do they find the time? You have like 40+ specific resources to keep track of as a weaponsmith, and picking up another profession usually consumes your best weaponsmith resources. Now if you don't like to do it that much, you may want to pick it up on the side, but why should I let a guy who picks up certain trees or just novice be able to make ANY weapons as good as a master.
Love my post or hate it, do what you do, but the gap is in every profession and its a good thing in my opinion.
Trean wrote:
samijx wrote:
Institute the same rules that Shipwrights have to endure as far as factories go. Allow a factory to mass produce sub-components, but not final products. Master weaponsmiths will not want to make 1000's of hand crafted weapons, thus opening up a market for less that perfect weapons.
This will make me and basically almost all weaponsmiths quit. Weapons are bought in bulk because the customer would like to maximize something or go through alot of them. Ships are not bought in bulk because you don't go through them as quickly and the cost would be high very high. Basically making people hand craft final compiles would alienate A LOT of the elite crafters in all professions. I simply don't have the time to hand craft the amount of weapons I sell, and if I did have to hand craft everything I wouldn't have been weaponsmith this long simply because it would stop me from playing any other part of the game. I contested the hand crafting part of shipwright things, I think it forces crafters to generally devote way to much time into a single thing which will lead to a high burn out rate and eventually lesser quality goods.
I think Trean speaks for all weaponsmiths here, if I had to hand craft all weapons I would close down my shop and just make weapons for all my friends. SWG would be ruined if this happened...I don't think anyone wants weapon prices to skyrocket.
As for the sub-components, I think people underate the non-advanced components. For example, I don't use the advanced pistol barrels for lower weapons, only Mod Reps and Geo sonics. I also only use the advanced rifle barrel for T-21s, occaisionally not even for that. (Come on guys, whats the difference between 410 and 408? Is it really worth another fifteen hundred credits worth of resources?). The lower level weapons with the lessre components are actually really good for grinding. You can make a 108 max, 1.3AS D18, a 126 max, 1.5AAS Scout blaster. Maybe even a 3.0AS, 197 max Dh17. Now, most people like the damage, but its speed that is really important for the lower levels of any profession. With some, its still important at Master.
So, at the very low levels of Weaponsmith, it would be possible (with the 10pts of exp.) to make some very nice grinding weapons. Admittedly, they wouldn't be able to make as much money as a MWS because they just don't have the schematics for the money-making weapons, but that's also the way it should be. A Master SHOULD make more money then a Novice, just not to the complete exclusion that it is atm.
- Increase the quality of resource spawns. This way you don't need the once-in-a-lifetime uber spawn, to make nice weapons.
- Allow NPC junk dealers to buy player crafted weapons (Say 1.5 CPU) that way the WS will get both XP and some of his money back, yet prevent factory runs being sold to said junk dealers for a profit. (Perhaps a junk dealer won't buy a weapon that has a serial number of one previouslybought.)
- Have crafting quests such as XXXX representitive of the Empire wishes to place an order for 50 DH-17 rifles. Then the WS can craft the rifles, walk up and sell them to the rep. (Similar to the junk dealer, but the reward can be additional WS crafting XP)
- Recommend that the aspiring WS first gets master smuggler, so he can slice his own weapons (Which I think still grants a small measure of user XP) and then he can sell his weapons that get really good damage slices. (long shot here, but hey....anything can help)
- Institute the same rules that Shipwrights have to endure as far as factories go. Allow a factory to mass produce sub-components, but not final products. Master weaponsmiths will not want to make 1000's of hand crafted weapons, thus opening up a market for less that perfect weapons. (Bad, Sami-jx Bad, Bad, Idea! stop with that kind of talk!) um, this is a bad Idea guys...don't even think about doing it.
3. As far as utilizing the player economy to correct for the discrepancy, I think that's just not reasonable, since 95% of all players are seeking high quality stuff only. I hope my comments/suggestions are helpful.
Message Edited by samijx on 01-27-2005 02:34 PM
Message Edited by samijx on 01-27-2005 05:06 PM
My hope would be that at least if a novice weaponsmith could make competitive novice weaponry, such as D-18s or DLT-20s,they might have at least a small portion of the market they could sell to and be able to help support themselves while mastering the profession. Additionally, this would allow people to further specialize their sales without being forced to blow skill points on master weaponsmith if they didn't want to. Someone could master only the melee tree and and make a healthy business for themselves by specializing inmelee weapons(less a few schematics in the MWS box) since they could match the quality of a master, but not the selection. You could do likewise with grenades or firearms.
Let's be honest: we've all been very lucky that for the most part, our profession works quite well. There's very little broken about it. It makes my job fairly easy and non-controversial. =) Perhaps I'm one of the "old guard" in my desire to see the profession become a little more newb-friendly, I dunno. That's one reason I wanted to solicit opinions and try and get a better idea of where you guys stood.
Thanks for your comments, everyone, and keep 'em coming.