Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: The gap between Novice and Master
CarissaLeigh
Fri Jan 28, 2005 7:36 am
#14
Is someone making this same argument in the Armorsmith, Chef, Architect and Doctor forums?
johnautry613
Fri Jan 28, 2005 8:52 am
#15
I can see this argument both ways. (BTW, I corrrected his math so that it gives what I think he is trying to do)
I understand the leave it alone idea. We all have dealt with this system. It works. Why mess with it?
I can understand what he is trying to say. It does make some since to me. I think if you look at the result of the way the systemwould still roll the dice for us, it stil makes far more since to master than to only have a novice. The potential penalty for making an expiramentation error would still be as ugle as it is now. and with more points comes more opportunities to have a fatal crash on an item.
Va-Mei
Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:36 am
#16
I think the idea has merit, but I might take it a bit farther... Make experimentation complexity simpler on the components for the elite trades, and more complex for final assemblies. This would allow Novice level players close to even footing in the market of components, giving them a saleable product without over-shadowing the masters.It would also makedabbeling in smithing a possibility, if you were content to make & sell comps, instead of finished weapons.
Consider the munitions market. How many MWSs shun making mines & grenades, because they don't want to deal with crafting another complete line of components? What if they could buycrates of high quality Warhead Mechanisms, Fusing Mechanisms & Stabilizing Devices from a novice, add a bit of polymer & steel and *Poof*, Imp Detonators.
How many of you have houses, factories & vendors dedicated to nothing but the creation & storage of crated comps? If you could, would you buy those comps from a supplier when you needed them,if the price & quality was right?
CarissaLeigh
Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:36 am
#17
I see both arguments, but anything that is done will de-value the "Master" box.
The way I see it......"If you want to Dabble in WS. Don't expect to make sweet(high quailty)weapons." Those who invested the time, money and resources should make better weapons. Someone invests an afternoon and expects to compete with established master is reaching.
For Example:
- Don't build a store beside "Walmart" and then think you will compete with Walmart overnight. Walmart is established, driven and a proven "Master" in the market. Over time and through working you will start to compete with Walmart. This could be compared to working your way up the skill tree. The more skill points you invest the better you will compete.
The more more I think about it the more I'm opposed to boosting Novice levels.
Tautology
Fri Jan 28, 2005 10:03 am
#18
I would like to suggest two things:
First)
non master WS should be able to craft components as good as master ws but not any elite weapons= this would open a market for crafted components which has been neglected till now.
Second)
Crafting weapons should cost a lot more resources then now, make them more valuable, this doesnt mean more expensive (Come on WS you know you are ripping the customers off if you sell them a sliced non enhanced powerhammer for 30k). By doing this resources would be used up quicker which means, old weaponsmiths (this includes myself, been here since launch)just cant keep hogging their old uber resources and creating a gap to newer weaponsmiths. This would differentiate the weapon quality alot more.
I know I am shaking a little salt into the wounds of a couple of WS with this statement but I would like to see these two points enforced.
EDIT:
I know some will prolly try to argument with supply and demand = price, but this isnt real life,
push and pull processes arent as active here, because the amount of input resources available is saturated + too high andconsequences of your market behavior doesnt have the weight, the importancy on others life.
Message Edited by Tautology on 01-28-2005 09:11 AM
CarissaLeigh
Fri Jan 28, 2005 10:56 am
#19
Tautology wrote:
I would like to suggest two things:
First)
non master WS should be able to craft components as good as master ws but not any elite weapons= this would open a market for crafted components which has been neglected till now.
Second)
Crafting weapons should cost a lot more resources then now, make them more valuable, this doesnt mean more expensive (Come on WS you know you are ripping the customers off if you sell them a sliced non enhanced powerhammer for 30k). By doing this resources would be used up quicker which means, old weaponsmiths (this includes myself, been here since launch)just cant keep hogging their old uber resources and creating a gap to newer weaponsmiths. This would differentiate the weapon quality alot more.
I know I am shaking a little salt into the wounds of a couple of WS with this statement but I would like to see these two points enforced.
EDIT:
I know some will prolly try to argument with supply and demand = price, but this isnt real life,
push and pull processes arent as active here, because the amount of input resources available is saturated + too high andconsequences of your market behavior doesnt have the weight, the importancy on others life.
Message Edited by Tautology on 01-28-2005 09:11 AM
Along the lines of what you are saying......Boost how fast a weapon deteriates/degrades. That actually does more to the economy than making the resource cost higher.
- Weapons will always need replacing.
- Loot will drop in price as it will not last as long.
- More WS "Could" be needed to maintain stocks/replacements.
- Prices will drop.
****In reality, a gun barrel will need replaced after X shots are made (i'm generalizing....more goes into Barrell life) with a weapon.
I'm not sure if this helps the Novice Levels, but it could increase the need for more WS's? The counter argument would be that I (an established WS) just boosts up production to edge out the new WS's.
Trean
Fri Jan 28, 2005 2:16 pm
#20
Tautology wrote:
I would like to suggest two things:
First)
non master WS should be able to craft components as good as master ws but not any elite weapons= this would open a market for crafted components which has been neglected till now.
Second)
Crafting weapons should cost a lot more resources then now, make them more valuable, this doesnt mean more expensive (Come on WS you know you are ripping the customers off if you sell them a sliced non enhanced powerhammer for 30k). By doing this resources would be used up quicker which means, old weaponsmiths (this includes myself, been here since launch)just cant keep hogging their old uber resources and creating a gap to newer weaponsmiths. This would differentiate the weapon quality alot more.
I know I am shaking a little salt into the wounds of a couple of WS with this statement but I would like to see these two points enforced.
EDIT:
I know some will prolly try to argument with supply and demand = price, but this isnt real life,
push and pull processes arent as active here, because the amount of input resources available is saturated + too high andconsequences of your market behavior doesnt have the weight, the importancy on others life.
Your vague references and statistics about ripping people off are highly misleading. I charge 12.5k for a power hammer, unenhanced unsliced. According to you I am ripping people off if I slice it get a 33% damage slice and sell it for over 100k. In my opinion you can't peg a price on the slicing market. Because its based on the roll of a die, and chances are if you buy a complete crate of hammers at 312.5k then you will get a few at that slice % and maybe a few higher. So you are saving the customer money and time in my opinion. As for ripping people off because prices are too high, once again we look at the 12.5k for my power hammer. This price is based on a few things, and none of them are the prices of other peoples weapons. The two main things I do is I take into account what I could make for the resources I put into a power hammer and its components if I dumped them on the open market in larger stacks of about 50-100k. Then I compensate for market dictations based on my previous 1 year of sales history. I usually reset prices every few months actually more like half a year. So no the market doesn't affect pricing, but its not because it doesn't fluctuate in the supply and demand curves it is because I don't choose to pay attention to it because cpu rates for the best resources possible tend to stay the same unless it was a very recent spawn. The dictation of added value to a product rather than selling raw materials helps counter reasoning for why are you not selling for base cpu rates. Okay enough economics.
In regards to weapons needing to use more resources. Okay, um, no? I say no because they decay quicker and are tossed away faster than any other consumable. If its a bad slice, delete and by another, apply power up and grind away that condition, so on and so forth. You are naive if you believe I will continue and others will continue to sell weapons at the same prices despite more resources being used. CPU rates are CPU rates, and there is no changing that. I as well as many other weaponsmith will not sell a product if I could get more just opening up a resource vendor. I love supplying weapons to the server and all my customers, but if its not worth it credit wise, then the time and effort you put into weaponsmith and making all those weapons is a basically putting you below someone who makes no products whatsoever.
Lastly, back to economics, supply and demand does come into play a lot more than you referenced. Although yes less so than real life a lot more so than you make it a light situation, if you are constantly selling out of weapon X you should technically be raising prices, if you don't you aren't trying to run a maximum profit business. If you aren't trying to do that, well that is fine, otherwise supply and demand comes into play quite a bit. Especially if you are an in demand weaponsmith with the best resources or the best weapons and the best crafting tools, fs lines, experimenation tapes.
Va-Mei wrote:
How many of you have houses, factories & vendors dedicated to nothing but the creation & storage of crated comps? If you could, would you buy those comps from a supplier when you needed them,if the price & quality was right?
The percentage of weaponsmiths that will buy there components from others will be staggeringly low. You make it seem like its a good thing to be dependent on another person in order to make weapons
. The market currently is reversed, as it should be, if novice weaponsmiths wish to make great weapons or 0004 weaponsmiths rather, then they must find a good to great weaponsmith to make their parts for them. The advanced parts do matter. Who here doesn't use an adv power handler, adv feed mech, adv vibro blade unit? The adv barrels are an odd bunch, they need to be realigned because like someone said making normal ones is usually easier, but it is in no way better in the current market.Why wouldn't anyone buy parts? Well lets put it to the numbers test... This week I made 3,000 adv power handlers... 1,000 adv blaster rifle barrels... 1,000 adv weapon stocks(better than any 10pt novice would make no matter what the system)... and finally 1,000 adv weapon scopes. Now as a 12pt Master I will make all these parts better than 10pt'ers so this eliminates any 12pt'ers from buying 10pt parts from Novices. These quantities are stifling and I personally, and assumingly alot of other weaponsmiths are like myself, would never buy this many parts from another weaponsmiths simply because of the cost. It is ultimately cheaper to power and pay for your own factories, harvest your own resources(when possible), and make your own parts. Mind you doing all these things is technically within the realm of the game, and if it weren't you would see more people selling parts, but they aren't because its more profitable to make them and make weapons than to sell parts. There is no way I would be buying parts from someone elses crafting because of the arrogance factor also, I have no idea how hard others work on crafting stuff, but it comes to the point where I want something like components so precise to maximize the numbers on my weapons I wouldn't trust anyone else that I didn't know personally in game to make them. And if they were a weaponsmith in game and I was friends with them, they would be grinding for master not making me parts .
.
SeaRaptor wrote:
While I agree that there should be some disparity between novice and master, right now the main chunk of that is schematics. There is very little a novice can make that people want to buy (at the moment). This is further compounded by the fact that everything they CAN make is radically inferior to whata master can make, thus ensuring that NOTHING a novice makes will sell. Period. This is a tremendous barrier to entering the profession, even if you completely overlook the obscene resource requirements of weaponsmith.
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.
Lastly, our great coorespondant
. I pretty much don't agree with almost everything you have said in your post. First off, I don't think Novices should be able to make anything worth selling, novices are novices and that is it(weapons wise I mean). Although not all masters sell lower level weapons, I do, which is why I would oppose novices trying to sell these weapons. Although, to set that aside, there is a terrible arrogance that comes with making top of the line, best or close to the top on your server types of weapons. I don't really want to give novices the ability to equal masters on any weapons whatsoever. The grind and resource requirements to be a highly competitive weaponsmith are humbling, and should very well be because at your peak with the best of the best resources a weaponsmith is constantly sought out, and should remember the grind as a terrible struggle yet a golden light at the end of the tunnel type of thing. Anyone entering the weaponsmith profession with knowledge knows that most weapons with great resources can be capped in the damage catagory with 8-10 points of experimentation. Why is this? Because there are built in maxes for most weapons and they are not100% experimentation, they vary for every weapon. So 0004 weaponsmithwhile technically not novices anymore, since they have some weaponsmith skills, can make decent weapons in the lower trees, since there is a built in schem limitation as you get higher you get moreschems,given they know the quarks of the experimentation system. I don't believe a 0000 novice weaponsmith should be competitive in anything, as they are novices, or rather competitive in making weaponry rather.Okay in regards to making picking up novice weaponsmith worthwhile. Well, there are many reasons people pick up novice weaponsmith that could be built on to help out artisans(which is whatthe readablepost is about) that have nothing to do with making weapons. For the current in game example I look to Weapon Upgrade Kits(aka WUKs) as they are generally produced by artisans with novice weaponsmith to get the schematic since it uses artisan experimentation. I would personally rather see more kits and things like that introduced in novice(new stuff not stuff in game moved there) and use artisan experimentation to encourage artisan to pick up novice weaponsmith in order to sell those. I don't know if this is what you are attempting to do, since the post I read was about helping artisan's out not bridging the gap between novice weaponsmith and master weaponsmith, although that is what he was proposing it boils down to helping artisans.
Message Edited by Trean on 01-28-2005 03:25 PM
samijx
Fri Jan 28, 2005 3:57 pm
#21
Don't talk to me about overpricing!!!!
- When I delt in normal weapons and ran my weapon shop, I was selling about 4 weapons a day earning about $50k per day.
- Weapons are used in the completing of missions. They are a necessary tool, and a single weapon can last for a month or more depending on how much you use it.
- If you have a customer that likes your weapon and thinks it's worth 30k, then he'll spend 30k. It's a market thing and not a resource thing. I think I sold my PH's for 14k, but that's Naritus, don't know your server.
- I used to be a smuggler too. I used to charge $3k per slice. I found another smuggler a few days ago and he charged me $8k. 8 frigg'in K. If you want to lay into someone for exploiting the econimy, go find that jerk!.
- Have a nice day.
dsurfman
Fri Jan 28, 2005 7:02 pm
#22
Trean I didnt even read all that. Split into smaller chunks man...It hurts my eyes! Secondly (not to Trean), I dont rip clients off. My sales are based on repeat customers. I sell weapons sliced at prices lower than alot of WS sell unsliced. Sliced PH 15k. Most carbines, and rifles, pistols from 3k-10k. Even enhanced I sell cheap. +200 max dam Vks, althought I know I can get up to 1 mil per VK it is is 210+, I sell for 35k. Repeat customers who recommend clients I give 10% off...
I do this because I like making good weapons, for myself and guild mainly, not for the money...
dsurfman
Fri Jan 28, 2005 7:10 pm
#23
dsurfman wrote:
But make it so that Tier I elite professions cannot effectively wield a weapon produced by a Tier IV or master. Not only does this fragment your sales a little but it also allows more WS individuality. Perhaps I am only going to be 2224 WS. Use the rest of my points elsewhere. I still have a market as a Tier II ws with Tier II quality weapons for every warrior who needs a tier II weaponsmith or below. Then make it so that a Tier II ws can definetly make every weapons that Tier II combatants want. I know it sounds a little bit more involved...I havent thought it out all they way either...but I think in the long run it is more fair for us all and makes for WS in the early stages to ahvea purpose...
I Have thought through this idea a little more and I think recommending the following would help.
- At any novice level elite crafting profession the player gets a merchant tent to place vendors. Every elite crafter is guranteed at least one vendor with 500 items. Any more then get merhcant. (not inclusive of Chef, Tailor or Architect)
- Each merchant tent has a Tier rating for other Elite professions. At certain Elite Tiers you gain the ability to shop from certain Tiered merchant tents.
- Higher Tiered quality weapons are not certified for Combat professions unless they are Tiered for that Quality. Even if a buddy buys it and trades them, the weapon will not work effectively in the hands of the user unless Tier requirements have been met.
- At each Tier of WS or AS you obviously are ranked higher in Tier quality
- This system I think allows novice weaponsmith to have a market. That way even a sword crafted by a Master WS will not be usable by Tier I Fencer because the quality would be too high.
- This also does not detract from the MWS sales, since we mostly sell high-end weapons anyway.
- all Loot schematics are used by MWS only!
Now I imagine the combat world would flame the hell out of this idea but...It makes a market for Novice AS and Novice WS without detracting from the Masters. And it would keep grinding in check.. NO more novice Fencers using +300 damage gaffis to grind through the profession. I think it would balance the professions to be more progressive and less grind...
What do you guys think?
Message Edited by dsurfman on 01-28-2005 09:11 PM
Implementor
Fri Jan 28, 2005 7:48 pm
#24
Just master the profession. Other ways to make money in the mean-time.
Also, as a 12-point force crafter I seriously doubt whether i would buy any sub-components from someone with lesser abilities...plus there's a pride factor in making and tweaking my own.
If one wants to dabble, then dabble. If you want to go full bore, invest the time, money, and experience into it.
Master Weaponsmith is Master for a reason.
And seriously, it's not that difficult to get to master if you have friends and some money. It is more so, to be sure, for someone just starting out from scratch (that was me, wow, I still remember my first medium harv I planted on the erobase spawn waaaay back, good times). Again, even then I never expected to sell any weapons (no wanted to *pride thing*) until I hit master.
Hey Trean, thanks for the input way back...wanna sell some anook? O_o hehe j/k
Terv
Fri Jan 28, 2005 9:10 pm
#25
I think the whole WS prof needs a redo, and the 10pt novice would be fine in my opinion.
Who cares if they have the points and if they have the resources, may aswell let them make some weapons they can sell to people starting out of switching up professions. I have had more D18,DTL20,and other starter weapon requests than I can count. I rather have a novice be making them and selling them for a bit on the bazzars and their vendors so I don't even have to bother.
Also, I would like the idea of making quests for crafters in the Theme Parks
Have WS make prototype weapons for the rebellion/imps/nyms/jabba, they give us some random components/resources and we make the best weapon possible. Then do some more elablorate weapons/weapons mods(dots,skill mods). That sort of stuff.
If you could do sort of crafting missions out of these places to get skill mods or a way of coming back and buying weapon components off one of the people from the park with faction or something. Say you could get a special dot component off only Imps, and a poison dot off Jabba, and a skill mod component off the rebels, dmg emhancements of Nyms guys.
I'm gonna think some more of about this and other stuff and make a fresh thread.
P.S.A great thing to make is a cargo pocket with the weapons needed to grind out base professions (Polearm,2H,Pistols Etc.)
They sell really well and fast as of late.
Message Edited by Terv on 01-29-2005 12:09 AM
Trean
Fri Jan 28, 2005 10:44 pm
#26
Implementor wrote:
Hey Trean, thanks for the input way back...wanna sell some anook? O_o hehe j/k
Gut shot for teh win!! I am buying more from sidious at the raping rate of 20cpu .
.Anyways back to the task at hand...
I am sorry for the long post, I had copied it because I actually thought it would be too long and get denied. Sorry. Its a good read though, imo.