Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Signature schematics an idea for encouraging cooperation between weaponsmiths
very good point.
Reldun wrote:
Again, the pay off is at master as it should be... the reward should be for actually acheiving master and collecting topnotch resources...you know...actually putting forth some effort. I would even go as far to say that craftign macros have had an extremely negative impact...so many smiths are powering through to master they don't knwo what they are doing, and haven't taken the time to learn or to collect resources. They complain they can't make anything before master so the macro, then they complain they can't compete with other masters...well that's because you actually have to work at it. Yor proposal to be blunt, is an attempt to reward people for half-assing it.
p4Samwise wrote:
Reldun wrote:
Again, the pay off is at master as it should be... the reward should be for actually acheiving master and collecting topnotch resources...you know...actually putting forth some effort. I would even go as far to say that craftign macros have had an extremely negative impact...so many smiths are powering through to master they don't knwo what they are doing, and haven't taken the time to learn or to collect resources. They complain they can't make anything before master so the macro, then they complain they can't compete with other masters...well that's because you actually have to work at it. Yor proposal to be blunt, is an attempt to reward people for half-assing it.
"Achieving master" currently consists of a lot of grinding of rifle barrels. Is that what you mean by "putting forth some effort"? Should that be the only way of getting thereward?
I completely agree that collecting topnotch resources is important and should be rewarded. As I've stated repeatedly in this thread, resources would have the same impact on final weapon quality with a "signature schematic" as they do right now. The non-master smith who spends thetime gathering good resources, and the additional time and effort to seek out other smiths and work together to produce good weapons, is putting forth just as much effort as the master smith. How is this "half-assing it"? It allows the weaponsmith to work towards master by making real weapons instead of grinding rifle barrels. It'd actually be more work to do it that way, but it'd be FUN.
Read the bold part please...I think that pretty much covers my viewpoint on crafting a billion rifles barrels.
p4Samwise wrote:
This way all the masturbatory master weaponsmiths get to keep playing solo if they want to - they can afk-camp a fewskill tape drops, get their +12 points on everything, and never interact with any other players if they don't want to.I think that calms down all the complaints I'm seeing in this thread. Right?
Actually despite the fact you may have some valid points, that single statement just undermines your entire credibility. Basically you're saying anyone who is not in agreement with your idea is a 'masturbatory master weaponsmith'. Insulting people just because they do not agree with you doesn't help you in any way.
Furthermore, people seem to always think the reward of achieving master status is being able to bull their way through the trees and there it is finished. The reward should be continuous based on the skill point investment. Master weaponsmiths must keep the 77 (?) skill points locked into that profession in order to produce the finest weapons. I'm not keen on the idea that someone can make anything at master level with spending only a fraction of skill points - regardless of whether it is just the one item or not.
p4Samwise wrote:This way all the masturbatory master weaponsmiths get to keep playing solo if they want to - they can afk-camp a few skill tape drops, get their +12 points on everything, and never interact with any other players if they don't want to.
This single paragraph completely destroyed any respect I had for you or your ideas. I'm the last person you would call a solo player, but I just can't stand people who ditch on other people's play styles.
As someone who has had to grind their way through the weponsmith tree recently I want to have my say.
I'm a weaponsmith on Ahazi and I cant compete.
Lets start with the fact I macro-ground my way through the tree... why? Because I wanted to be a weaponsmith and until you are master, nobody will buy what you make ("D00d <X> makes much better weapons than U, Ur crap" syndrome). I survived making crap weapons for Smugglers to grind, and putting cheap rubbish on the bazaar.
However(!) Before starting the profession, I read this forum intently, I read the stickies, I read every thread I could before starting the profession... guess what... I cant compete.
While I was grinding my way through weaponsmith I had harvesters down on any WS resource that spawned, I got decent copper, some decent steel... guess what... I cant compete.
Now, 3 weeks later I'm considering giving the profession up, why? It's no fun.
1. The resources aren't there (anybody hunting for plumbum on Ahazi recently will know what I'm talking about) If you want me to wait 2-3 months doing NOTHING (and paying for the privilige) waiting for resources (as some are suggesting to keep WS "rare") then I'm leaving.
2. I cannot break the cartel older WS have, they don't need me, they don't need to help me, I'm a threat to them if I get good... Which is why many of you want to keep things tight, keep the control you have over the profession. If it stays this way... I'm leaving.
My Point:
Those of us who can't compete need something to keep us going. This is a good way of doing it. To placate the older WS who are having Anurysms (sp) over someone who ISNT A MASTER making stuff as good as them, make it 1 speciality.
When you are Novice WS you choose 1 schematic, just 1. Any schematic from the WS tree. You get a bonus making this item, either a 10% assembly/experimentation bonus, max exp points, breaking the resource gate in some way, what ever. This is your weaponsmiths speciality. For good. Novice weaponsmiths get something they can make well, and possibly other weaponsmiths will come to them for subcomponents that they craft well (spreading the wealth somewhat). A master specialising in T-21's would sell lots of them, but defenitly at a higher price, and the folks who didn't want to pay it would go to other weaponsmiths (therefore not locking out the market).
Its a way to go that will stop this profession becoming exclusive to 5 people per server (making it harder than Jedi.... woo hoo).
My 2p.
Egor K'Die
Weaponsmith
AG Imperial City
Naboo
Ahazi
Perhaps, instead of giving every weaponsmith the specialization, only masters can get it. Not only that, but once they choose one, they can't drop master and rechoose. You are stuck as that forever, so choose wisely. So when you make master, it asks you, melee, ranged or munitions. You choose one, and you have the option of being more specialized...for melee, melee weapons, 1h, 2h or polearms and for ranged pistol, rifle or carbine. You get a little bonus to assembly and experimentation for what you choose. If you choose to go to the second level, the bonus for it is enough to make it worth it. The general ranged or melee or munitions applies to components as well, but not the specialized ones. A ranged specialist might be better off just getting good stuff for advanced parts and selling them to a rifle or pistol maker. Same goes for a melee to a 2h or melee weapons dealer. There would still be competition between people who did the same thing. Imagine being that guy who makes his money trying to sell parts to the highest bidder, having to sell just low enough that your competition doesn't get the deal but you still get a good profit. Or being on the opposite side, being the swordsmith that has to win the bidding war for the best cores you can find.
Forgive me for not knowing much about munitions, seems like the thing most of us ignore. Either way, it would add a bit of a "business" element besides the pricing vs. quality comparison that is the only thing involved in the competition now.
Ikour
EgorKDie wrote:
As someone who has had to grind their way through the weponsmith tree recently I want to have my say.
I'm a weaponsmith on Ahazi and I cant compete.
Egor K'Die
Weaponsmith
AG Imperial City
Naboo
Ahazi
So whats it's going to be? You can stick to your guns or you can fold. There is no shame in folding now, you have already come a heck of a lot further than most.
I have been a master WS since September. I started my resource collection in the beg of August. I started making quality weapons in October / November. Since that time I have hoarded enough resources of legendary spawns and got myself to be one of the better smiths on Wanderhome. But I started to feel the pinch that smiths feel. Where they hit that wall and they don't want to play anymore. As much as I enjoyed making great weapons I was getting tired. I found a solution that kid of ties into what was intended in this thread.
Me and another MW combined forces. We bought out another MS that was retiring and then combined everything we had. We came up with a "company" name and a standard way to name our weapons and we share the crafting duties. We both operate seperate vendors on seperate planets. We both make very good money from our respective vendors so money is never an issue for us. I only have to craft half of the time now. Now I have time to work on a combat profession. We share everything 100%. We have 6 Storage houses and 14 factories that are always running. We pooled out exp points enhancments and have them avail for eachother. It has been one of the best decisions I have made in the game. Has given both of us more time and we still make the best stat weapons in the game.
ImaTwilek wrote:
Weapon schematics rely specifically on crated components with serial numbers.
In the event that the nov WS either runs out of resources, or changes their schematic, the master WS suffers,and so does their whole chain of production that relys on that one component.
Indeed. Motivation for the master WS to negotiate with the novice beforehand to work something out, or simply buy in bulk quantities (e.g. the full 1000).
There are other problems with the factory system that come into play here which I haven't discussed, but I think they need to be solved independently anyway. Namely, the fact thatsubcomponents typically need to be produced in factories,with factoriesnot givingexperience, means that you don't really get experience for crafting subcomponents unless you're grinding them. For that matter, finished weapons are often factory-produced as well, in order to cut down on the randomness of experimentation.
Simple fix is to have factories give full XP. Much better fix is to fix usage XP so that "crafting" XP doesn't weigh in as heavily, and you're rewarded any time you make a useful weapon. But that's another tangent.
Sure GRINDING rifle barrels to acheive the mastery level is a pathetic solution, but there is much more to being a successful WS with just grinding.
Exactly my point! Why should grinding even be a part of the equation? If a system were implemented that allowed a beginning weaponsmith to participate in the weapons market to some limited extent, hopefully with the possibility of working with masters who could teach him/her the ropes along the way, grinding would drop out of the equation, and player skills could progress along with character skills. By the time you hit Master Weaponsmith, you'd have actually done enough weaponsmithing to be worthy of the title.
Thumbs down on dabblers
I see a lot of hate for "dabblers" but I don't think it's always justified. The very way the skill trees are laid out encourages "dabbling" (taking some skills from a given profession without necessarily mastering it). Observe that in the elite professions, skill branches cost the most at the lower levels, and less at the higher levels, which naturally encourages you to max out some trees without necessarily taking a breadth of all of them, whereas novice professions have the opposite distribution, encouraging you to dabble amongst the various branches but not necessarily to master all of them.
The weaponsmith tree in particular has titles such as "swordsmith", "gunsmith", and "explosives manufacturer", implying that you can train up in that branch and fit the description given by the title - e.g. you could smith a lot of swords and be a respectable "swordsmith".
Naturally, the very best all-around weaponsmith will always be a "master", but I don't think we need to steer everyone towards mastery. I "dabble" in the rifleman tree to some extent and find it quite nice, maxing out the "Sniper" and "Soldier" trees, which is enough to let me struggle through the themeparks and even participate in PvP now and then, but at less than half the ability of a Master Rifleman who has sunk skill points into the entire tree. This seems to me to be a good thing. I'd suggest that similarly, a weaponsmith who sinks skill points into "Swordsmith" and "Expert Weaponsmith" should be able to make at least some melee weapons at master level. This puts that "dabbler" at less than one third the ability of a master, but with more than one half the skill point and experience investment. Seems pretty fair to me.
signature mmmm doesnt mean much to a masterWS even an extrapoint or5 doesnt mater much on gated schets they are still gated oh and the ones that arent gated hello you can only max damage so far then you need to think of durability ham or range so the signature doesnt matter much to the master (oh yeah i hear it already but i can max the range modifiers cool this give variety and a signature feel to your weapons in stead of all the best weapons looking identical( not every smith will go for rangebonus or ham reduction)
AHHH but for the apprentice a way to help pay for that awful long grind to master and yes we all know its a costly grind in resources (especially grinding out the heavy warheads) add back in the USE xp for an aprentice selling to a master the grind wont be as long and he can make some money on the way (10 experimental points ought to do it but only on the signature items (all draft shematics in the same 'tree'ie all melee all ranged or all munitions) this gives a master WS the option of supporting 3 different apprentices (at least) more if he wants to be the UBER WS take on an apprentice oh you bet i would love to have1 or 2 or even 10 students tohelpme collect raw and rare materialthat can run components so i dont have to at the same level as i do youbet it makesa better weaponand lets me concentrate on doing what every master WS wants to do relax and have fun we did the hard grind i dont want to do that all the time id like to take time and hunt the big game (yeah me and my RB and cdef certs makes a nice break from crafting and harv runs)
we all hae a bad rap for gougeing heck taking into account the time and raw resources just to make master WS i can under stand the gougeing of the grandmaster WS but with the apprentice in place (as described) the master wont have spent as much time or pitched raw resources away in practice mode and we wont have to charge 30-3000 cru for final products as a master
as a side note to any non WS reading i have to sell aproximately 15 weapons at 15k an hour to make the same money as a combat model doing enraged rancor missions for an hour i cant sell them that fast so the price goes up (ah but what wonderful sliced powerhammers are availableat only 15k oh and for you that like to get them sliced your self 15k as well as i have posted elsewhere smugglers LOVE me)
I hadn't even thought of the implications of taking on multiple apprentices... but you're right, one master and a group of apprentices would be really interesting. Heck, you could actually have a "guild" in the real-life sense of the word (that is, a group of craftsmen) at that point.
Kelliannaenwyl wrote:
this gives a master WS the option of supporting 3 different apprentices (at least) more if he wants to be the UBER WS take on an apprentice oh you bet i would love to have1 or 2 or even 10 students tohelpme collect raw and rare materialthat can run components so i dont have to at the same level as i do youbet it makesa better weaponand lets me concentrate on doing what every master WS wants to do relax and have fun we did the hard grind i dont want to do that all the time id like to take time and hunt the big game (yeah me and my RB and cdef certs makes a nice break from crafting and harv runs)