Weaponsmith Archive

I don't think they have anything against us, really. I think it's that the devs are spread WAY too thin right now. Pretty much all the professions have problems, some more than others. Other professions work fine, but are unbalanced (IE: CHs). Then there's teh content stuff they promised and are trying to get out (player cities, mounts, vehicles), and at the same time, they've got bugs to fix.

Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy this game, even the crafting system, but we've got a LOT of work to do to get this game into a perfect state. That said, I think bringing up these kinds of consolidated posts is helpful to getting things resolved. At the very least, it puts DarkCipher on notice that we still have issues with this stuff.

The problem with doing away with Techniques and allowing Novices to create "simple" guns identical to a Master is the same problem that struck Architects.

A Master Architect could not make a single item better than a Novice, the only benefit he had was that he could make a PA Hall, whereas Novices did not have that schematic. What happened? Novices flooded the market with undercuts on the lesser itemsand destroyed the Architect economy. Now experimentation is being slowly implemented into the Architect profession to undo the problems not having it caused.

The same thing would happen to Weaponsmiths. Those who did not feel like putting forth the effort to Master would simply hang around the "simple" popular guns and undercut them until they are worth nothing. It's not going to matter if you can make a Scout Blaster just as good as a Master if you won't be able to sell it because there are 349032943243294 other Novices flooding the Bazaar with them. Just as Novice Architects making small houses just as good as a Master didn't matter, because they were already going on sale on the Bazaar for 3k or less, since everyone and their kitchen sink hopped on the "Novice Architect as a hobby" train.

I think the Techniques tree should always remain. However, I think the Munitions tree needs to be removed. Frankly, most Masters do not bother with Munitions. And since grenades are charged-based, no one really cares about the extra 10 pts of damage a Master could get over a Tech IV smith, they just want to find someone selling them. But having to go up the Munitions tree for it, well, by then you're nearly Master anyway. Munitions and charged Heavy Weapons are an *excellent* business venture for Tech IV smiths who choose to take the time to gather the particular resources and advertise themselves, because by the time you're Master, you've got such a heavy workload that you can't find the time for annoying crates of C22s or ASLs, etc.

Additionally, since most of them are such a chore to make, they will always have some sort of minimum going-rate that even the most drastic undercuts could not destroy. Also, I'd think that Flamethrowers and Rocket Launchers should be removed from Master and placed into FA4. But unfortunately, you cannot just do away with the Techniques tree without doing away with the core of the Weaponsmith economy.

Bump in the hopes that TH will catch this while making his rounds.