Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Now that Slicing weapons will be greatly changed....?
SeaRaptor wrote:
I still won't sell sliced weaponry.
Considering that slices can now be customized not only to the weapon but to the customer, it's going to be impossible to account for all of the possible variations of slice someone could want. They might want their noob cannon tailored more for accuracy so they miss less, or they might want it slanted towards speed, or perhaps some mix of the two.
I suppose you could still potentially stock the "most popular" slicing arrangements, but -- to me -- it's still too much hassle. My job is to make weapons. If my customers want to cut them up, that's their business. I think you might also find fewer people tweaking their weapons in this fashion given the potential for screw-ups and the accelerated decay. But we'll see.
Sliced weapons account for about 40% of my partnership's sales, so we'll take a pretty big hit as a result of the new slicing system. My sliced vendors are very profitable even if it is a hassle to get them sliced, get them to the vendor (sometimes takes several trips), priced, stocked, and inevitably for some, restocked. Of course some never hit a vendor or go straight to the bargain vendor for 2k each so that will be a thing of the past. The change is good for weapons/armor buyers as well as smugglers so I'm not crying about it, it will just take some adjustment to how we do business and perhaps our standard of living 
It's too early to tell if it will make sense to keep stocking sliced weapons, albeit in very limited fashion. Since rarity will no longer be an issue, you'll only be able to sell sliced weapons for the normal price plus the price of the slicing plus a convenience fee for the extra work that comes with selling sliced, but that will be limited and ultimately players will decide if that's a convenience they are willing to pay for. We'll also have to see if the changes made to a weapon are permanent (and restored by tuning) or if tuning essentially amounts to an opportunity to reconfigure the slice periodically. If it's the latter, then some players would likely be inclined to buy weapons off the vendor ready to fire and then get them resliced later or as needed if finding smugglers tends to be inconvenient. I'll probably be taking a wait and see approach to see what players want.
The way I see it, my job as a WS is to make weapons, but my job as a Merchant is to find out what people want and make it available to them. Besides the convenience of buying weapons already sliced, the other reason people like buying sliced is that the cost of screwed up slices are spread out among all the purchasers, like a form of slicing insurance.
As for decay, my understanding of the current system is that slicing already affects weapon decay in the respect that decay is accellerated by increased damage output, whether that's from a slice, using specials, or powerups, all of which increase the damage done, though I could be mistaken about that.
Rhadida wrote:
They haven't stated though what will happen to the current already sliced weapons? Will they become pre-patch-sliced weapons, or will they be changed towards their initial slice result and can therefore be re-sliced?
The whole thing is only in concept right now and only was announced 3 days ago. This sounds like a job for Felton (even though he hates sliced weapons
) as far as keeping an eye on the Dev's on this issue to make sure they dont' do anything sneaky. I'm thinking of starting a rumor that they'll be introducing a new loot recycler schematic for weapons made obsolete by the smuggler revamp. You feed in the old sliced weapons and get back the generic resources with 200 stats across the board and components comparable to the ones players loot most of the time.
Maceey wrote:glad i stopped selling sliced weapons about 2 weeks ago
they take to much time to slice and stock for meand it sounds like the new system will take a lot more time to slice weapons as well.
Amen to that! My sentiments exactly. I discontinued my sliced weapons vendor a long time ago. I know it's primarily what players want and I'm losing out sales, but it just takes up WAY too much of my gaming time to pull off. I really, really hope that after the smuggler revamp that selling weapons unsliced is the norm again.
Hurlobacca wrote:
The whole thing is only in concept right now and only was announced 3 days ago. This sounds like a job for Felton (even though he hates sliced weapons
I don't hate sliced weapons. All of the weapons I use are sliced. I simply choose not to stock them on my vendors. That's a business decision I made a very long time ago, and I'm tragically stubborn. =)
As far as keeping an eye on it, I am, but more on the numbers side of things. I'm leaving the process and immersion discussion to the smugglers; what I want to know are hard numbers on how much slicing can enhance a weapon. My HOPE is that slicing in the future is viewed as a CHOICE, not a NECESSITY. A 5-10% bonuswill be desired by PvPers looking for every edge they can get and notafraid of running the risks of Imperial patrols/scans. For themore PvE oriented person,that kind of bonus may not be worth the risk, perhaps. Those are the kinds of CHOICES I hope players end up making under the new system: "Is a 5% speed increase really worth the risk of getting attacked/fined every time I travel to Bestine?" or something.
All I know is thatI am personally sick and tired of there being zero drawbacks to slicing a weapon, and I think the devs are too. Hopefully the new system will reflect this.
Well I am just lucky I am nota DEV when that has to be implemented
SeaRaptor wrote:
I don't hate sliced weapons. All of the weapons I use are sliced. I simply choose not to stock them on my vendors. That's a business decision I made a very long time ago, and I'm tragically stubborn. =) I'm just teasing you about hating sliced weapons.
As far as keeping an eye on it, I am, but more on the numbers side of things. I'm leaving the process and immersion discussion to the smugglers; what I want to know are hard numbers on how much slicing can enhance a weapon. My HOPE is that slicing in the future is viewed as a CHOICE, not a NECESSITY. A 5-10% bonuswill be desired by PvPers looking for every edge they can get and notafraid of running the risks of Imperial patrols/scans. For themore PvE oriented person,that kind of bonus may not be worth the risk, perhaps. Those are the kinds of CHOICES I hope players end up making under the new system: "Is a 5% speed increase really worth the risk of getting attacked/fined every time I travel to Bestine?" or something. I guess what I really meant to say was that we'd be relying on you to keep an eye on what's going to happen to all the existing sliced weapons, though obviously you won't be able to share that with us until the information is public anyway.
All I know is thatI am personally sick and tired of there being zero drawbacks to slicing a weapon, and I think the devs are too. Hopefully the new system will reflect this.Under the current system, sliced weapons decay faster, don't repair as well, cost more due to the need to slice multiple weapons to get the "right" sliceand subject the holder toscans, though they're infrequent and usually not sucessful even when you have loads of contraband on you.I agree that none of those serve as deterrents to people using slicedweapons as probably fewer than 1% of weapons actually used are not sliced.
Everyone in the game wants to have the best weapons they possibly can get, so unless the benefits are reduced dramatically as you suggest and the cost is raised just as dramatically, I don't see too many players wanting to abandon using sliced weapons.
Message Edited by Hurlobacca on 03-16-2005 03:25 AM