Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: What we discussed
just my 2 credits
ana-mo-cara wrote:
1. Sliced weapons on the vendor. After a protracted discussion we came to the conclusion that they should only be tradeable not vendorable or sold on the bizarre. This promotes weaponsmiths skill over the quality of a slice, and it promotes a greater use to just plain smugglers in the game. Wes seemed to think this would be generally good for the smuggler community. This would also eliminate the bake and waste philosiphy. Where smiths make and then slice destoying poorly sliced weapons. This is time consumeing and pointless. It also undercuts back alley smugglers who cannot compete, because they are still subject to randomness in sliceing. While by tossing out weaponsmith/smugglers get an unfair advantage because the customer will always get the slice he or she wants. This includes the choice of damage or speed. Plus the choice of the number.
I am for this but what of the instance where someone wants to sell used weapons and armor? or someone buys a lot in anticipation of the proper slice? or for those smugglers that have a bulk slicing deal with weaponsmiths? no big deal to me but it may be for others
2. Mineing rights we generally accepted that mineing certifications would be a good thing. If they were placed in artisan. Its too easy for someone to just place a harvester without even delegateing any points to the act. If you want to harvest meat you need to have scout. To harvest minerals or resources you should have to dedicate some points. To prevent resources from being field. This prevents players from simply buying into a profession. Being a decent crafter should require some work. Not just a ton of credits.
My issue with this? I have to make spices am I not supposed to be able to mine for materials myself without artisan? at the moment I pay artisans to survey for me when I need it but if I were to purchase the materials I would be at the mercy of their price and spice making may become prohibitive. Keep in mind that smuggler is not the only profession that crafts that needs this, medics, dox, combat medics. All need resources but no artisan prerequisits. I only make spice for the guild so again not an issue for me but something to considar
3. Heavy weapons. We decided it would probabally be a good idea if heavy warheads took the place of protons in the rocket launcher schematic. It simplifies this item just a little bit, and will allow the weaponsmith to make more and charge less for them. Hard to convince a smuggler that a 30 use weapon is really worth the price it has to go for. Cutting out five assemblies would do a world of good.
I've wondered why more people don't get these items sliced as they can make huge differences in spd/dmg I used torocket launchers, acid beams, etc all the time
ana-mo-cara wrote:
Well all chat software has a problem. For the most part I think the launchpad chat worked, and everyone should have that installed it should have installed when you installed the game. On some chats firewalls interfere. On others you end up needing 5or 6 different patches. While I feal for your system load I cannot see how its a result of the launchpad chat. I mean how resource intensive can this be on your system. You open the launchpad you put in your name and password you go hit the chat button. I mean to me yahoo chat is more resource intensive.
I am a weaponsmith smuggler, and I have come to a general conclusion being that template breaks down into one thing your a weaponsmith that happens to be a smuggler. You know like its a freaking accident. Personally
Try opening you launchpad and the chat and look at your taskmanager, and watch how much cpuload it has.
Giamai wrote:
i made my opinions known on the illegal items becoming unvendorable thing on another thread so i won't go there but then there's harvester certifications
doa search of the artisan forums...this was discussed at length for quite some time there last summer with a group quite a bit larger than 8. ended up about 50:50 for and against. i was a definite no...and this is why:
1) there are several professions that have a legitimate need for resources that do not require artisan. because of the skill point limits this forces them to handicap any combat skills making them much weaker than they need to be. those professions include doctor, cm, BE, and smuggler.
this means a locked market for resource peopleallowing them to corner the market if you remove what you can do currentlywhich isbuy wp's for resources from artisans. certain resources are simply not on resource vendors routinely and this handicaps these professions further.
2) comparing scout harvesting versus setting up a harvester is not a fair comparison. anyone canput upa house why not a harvester? but skinning a durni to get hide, that i can see requires some skill.
as an alternative, one of the many arguments went, instead of nerfing everyone else, give artisans valuable bonuses to the surveying tree. a commando can't plant a harvester on the side of a hill but an artisan can. or an artisan gets 13 BER on a heavy but a swordsman lacking some mechanical skill is only able to get 8 BER out of the same harvester.
consider this alternative in your discussions...i think it helps artisans without taking too much away from others
Asir_SWG wrote:
I have already posted a solution to this issue on the first page.... If you have no skills you get personal units, you can still harvest resources, but if you need large amounts you will need to either spend a few SP or purchase the resources on the open market. At the moment the ability to chuck down ber 13's without any skill points spent is a free meal ticket.
that is only a partial solution...
there are more issues thanthis that are created with certs.
1) there are very specific resources needed that simply do not appear in the open resource market except by request. there are simply too many resources for a dedicated resource miner to keep up with. this alone hinders people as they will not necessarily be able to obtain the best stats on things they need without keeping up with resources themselves. having to wait for a miner to get these specific resources produces a bottleneck whereas a part time crafter like a BE or CM is currently able to pay attention to these things on their own without the interdependency
2) personals are capped at 4 BER at best. as a master doctor, for example,this is not going to allow the retrieval of sufficient resources to allow the recovery of a reasonable level of resources to produce stims or buffs to run a business.
3) as i said, spending the skill points for something in addition to the prof is unnecessary as it stands now. CM in particular is intended to be combat support, skill points are already stretched just to allow that to happen, adding artisan severely weakens all of these professions that legitamately need resources but for which artisan is not required. it is a stretch that becomes unfair simply because all the other crafting professions are not required to use up skill points .. they come with their chosen profession.
4) requiring harvester certifications basically encourages something the devs don't want, cross server lot trading. start a new toon and make them an artisan becomes beneficial over simply renting lots from combat people within the server.
what i am encouraging is an anti-nerf...always people are attempting to take things away from others for their own benefit. what i suggest is giving bonuses to artisan so that it encourages people to want to take up artisan for the bonuses rather than creating a monopoly that hurts others and makes people look for ways to work around it.
Hurlobacca wrote:
Felton, do you sell sliced weapons?
No. Never have, never will. I don't see the point in de-valuing my work. As an engineer, I am taught to abhor waste. Crafting weapons just to throw half of them away is wasteful. As a businessman, I don't see the need in taking risks with my stock that will cause roughly half of it to lose value. That's what I feel slicing does. Besides, contrary to popular belief, not EVERYONE gets or wants a slice.
Whether you do or your don't, do you feel that as correspondent you should represent all weaponsmiths regardless of whether they sell sliced or not?
Do you really need to ask this question? I feel like I'm doing a decent job trying to gather the viewpoints of both sides here. (See the poll thread, for example.) I know my own mind on this issue, but that doesn't invalidate in any way the thoughts and experiences of others.
It seems to me like the foremost item on their agenda was a pursuit of a ban on selling sliced weapons on vendors. Curiously, at least some of them are WS's who also slice, something I've never cared to do myself because I don't have time and also because I don't think I should have a vertical monopoly on every aspect of selling weapons since I do everything but the slicing. The fact of the matter is that all weapons are sliced by smugglers, and taking sliced weapons off vendors doesn't help smugglers and only penalizes some WS, as each weapon can only be sliced once and by a smuggler and they already own 100% of the smuggling business.
I can assure you that any kind of restriction on illegal goods on vendors will only go through with the thought and input of the Smuggler community. They've been abused enough as is. I think you might see it some day, but I also think that the dev team probably has more pressing matters on its plate right now.
That doesn't mean we can't discuss the matter; however, I only think this will be a problem for a little while longer. Anyone who thinks that the current state of slicing (huge benefits, no penalties) isn't going to undergo some changes as a part of the Combat Upgrade is kidding themselves. Still, it would benefit us to see if there's some middle ground that can be reached and a solution that works for everyone... which brings us to this discussion.
SeaRaptor wrote:
Hurlobacca wrote:
Felton, do you sell sliced weapons?
No. Never have, never will. I don't see the point in de-valuing my work. As an engineer, I am taught to abhor waste. Crafting weapons just to throw half of them away is wasteful. As a businessman, I don't see the need in taking risks with my stock that will cause roughly half of it to lose value. That's what I feel slicing does. Besides, contrary to popular belief, not EVERYONE gets or wants a slice.
I've sold several thousand sliced weapons but only throw awayless thanten percent at most and not because they wouldn't sell but because of vendor item limits.I see running a sliced vendor as akin to offering slicing insurance for your customers. I make a lot more selling sliced than I would selling unsliced but I am providing an additional service, assuming increased risk, and increasing my labor costs due to the time it takes me to transport sliced weapons,price, stock and restock them. The one thing that amazed me when I first created these vendors is that I sell nearly as many speed sliced weapons as I do damage sliced. Granted they generate roughly half the income.
I run a weapons business in partnership with two other players and run the DamageSliced and Speed Slicedvendors (both of which also contain Krayt and other Special weapons like scythes, de-10's, acklay hammers, etc.)and they run other vendors including Melee, Ranged, Heavy Weapons/Grenades and Krayt/Special Weapons vendors all of which offer unsliced weapons. I also run a Crate Weapons vendor for players that want to get a whole crate of their favorite weapons sliced.
Our arrangement is fairly unique but we work hard to provide quality weapons for all players regardless of whether their preference is for sliced or unsliced weapons. I agree with you that many players prefer to buy unsliced weapons and we try to accomodate those differences and fashion our business model so as to meet the needs of the players on our server.
Whether you do or your don't, do you feel that as correspondent you should represent all weaponsmiths regardless of whether they sell sliced or not?
Do you really need to ask this question? I feel like I'm doing a decent job trying to gather the viewpoints of both sides here. (See the poll thread, for example.) I know my own mind on this issue, but that doesn't invalidate in any way the thoughts and experiences of others.
I should have worded the question differently as it's not my intention to question your integrity and I think you've done a great job as correspondent thus far. I don't see any valid reason for WS's to object to other WS's selling sliced weapons. To me that would be like 12 point smiths objecting to 10 point smiths selling krayt or enhanced weapons which wouldn't make any sense either and would likewise be an intrusion on another player's right to self-determination in how they play their profession.
It seems to me like the foremost item on their agenda was a pursuit of a ban on selling sliced weapons on vendors. Curiously, at least some of them are WS's who also slice, something I've never cared to do myself because I don't have time and also because I don't think I should have a vertical monopoly on every aspect of selling weapons since I do everything but the slicing. The fact of the matter is that all weapons are sliced by smugglers, and taking sliced weapons off vendors doesn't help smugglers and only penalizes some WS, as each weapon can only be sliced once and by a smuggler and they already own 100% of the smuggling business.
I can assure you that any kind of restriction on illegal goods on vendors will only go through with the thought and input of the Smuggler community. They've been abused enough as is. I think you might see it some day, but I also think that the dev team probably has more pressing matters on its plate right now.
I agree the smuggler community needs some love. I just take objection to this recurring practice of trying to enhance one profession by diminishing another when there are so many other things that can be done to enhance smuggler without spoiling someone else's fun, especially when the proposed solution would be so easy to work around. Even if I couldn't sell my sliced weapons on a vendor I'd still get my crates sliced and put them on display in a house or put them in packs or whatever. Nothing would be accomplished except inconveniencing players like me as I'd still be paying smugglers to slice my goods, same as always.
That doesn't mean we can't discuss the matter; however, I only think this will be a problem for a little while longer. Anyone who thinks that the current state of slicing (huge benefits, no penalties) isn't going to undergo some changes as a part of the Combat Upgrade is kidding themselves. Still, it would benefit us to see if there's some middle ground that can be reached and a solution that works for everyone... which brings us to this discussion.
I'll admit to getting a bit hot under the collar when 8 "experts" get together and proclaim they've decided they don't like sliced weapons on vendors and want to start a campaign to ban them.
There are in fact penalties associated with slicing weapons but they are limited to the usefulness (half of them decreasing in value by your estimate) and longevity of the weapons. You either have to pay more for a sliced weapon or buy enough to get a good slice and repairs are also adversely affected by slicing and weapon decay is impacted by the amount of damage the weapon is producing as well. If you are referring to in-combat changes to how a sliced weapons affect players ham, that seems like it would make sense.
I think we're all looking forward to learning more about the changes to combat/weapons/armor as that information becomes available to us. If, as you predict, the desirability of sliced weapons may even change with the revamp then it would seem a bit premature to advance a campaign to remove sliced weapons from vendors when player preferences might decide that issue anyway before long, which is how it should be anway.
There are in fact penalties associated with slicing weapons but they are limited to the usefulness (half of them decreasing in value by your estimate) and longevity of the weapons. You either have to pay more for a sliced weapon or buy enough to get a good slice and repairs are also adversely affected by slicing and weapon decay is impacted by the amount of damage the weapon is producing as well. If you are referring to in-combat changes to how a sliced weapons affect players ham, that seems like it would make sense.
I think we're all looking forward to learning more about the changes to combat/weapons/armor as that information becomes available to us. If, as you predict, the desirability of sliced weapons may even change with the revamp then it would seem a bit premature to advance a campaign to remove sliced weapons from vendors when player preferences might decide that issue anyway before long, which is how it should be anway.
Mr Bacca.
The discussion was held as a meeting of minds, hopefully the first of many, where people who have a vested interest can join in and debate suggestions, the Smuggler correspondent did just this and contributed actively to the discussion. As for campaigns, well people start campaigns for all sorts of things all the time. Personally I don't think any of the things we discussed will ever make it into the game, but that does not mean the meeting and discussion we had was invalid and meaningless.
There was no feeling of anyone there regarding themselves as any more of an 'expert' than anyone else who posts here.
If you don't like the chat meeting idea and don't think it worthwhile then please don't attend, and there's no reason to be disparaging towards others who wish to try this sort of thing.
Message Edited by Muzz on 02-16-2005 09:16 AM
Message Edited by Muzz on 02-16-2005 09:16 AM
ana-mo-cara wrote:
2. Mineing rights we generally accepted that mineing certifications would be a good thing. If they were placed in artisan. Its too easy for someone to just place a harvester without even delegateing any points to the act. If you want to harvest meat you need to have scout. To harvest minerals or resources you should have to dedicate some points. To prevent resources from being field. This prevents players from simply buying into a profession. Being a decent crafter should require some work. Not just a ton of credits.
Rather than quote Hurlo's post, I'll just say: Thanks for your thoughts. I don't really see this as a divisive issue, merely a choice that some smiths make. I don't have anything against people who choose to sell sliced stuff on their vendor, I simply don't do it myself. I don't see the need to nerf their ability to do so at this point in time, mainly because there are no other good alternatives available at the moment.
This is a good discussion, and one we need to be having. Anyone with thoughts, please feel free to contribute; no one's opinion is invalid.
Message Edited by WILDMAN_SOLO on 02-16-2005 03:06 PM
