Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Time To End the +10 vrs +12 Crafter Wars?
Raccaboo.
First off I think SEA's are lame. It's not a very well thought out idea in my opinion. There are so many other ways they could have made loot drops that would have enhansed the crafting community it boggles my mind. Even some crafted tools should have the ability to affect the outcome of craft or even repair of an item.
I never understood why they didn't create programs which would enhanse crafting skills. Slap it into your datapad and you would get skill bonuses. They could have made them so that they would take up a large chunk of your data storage so that there are some limitations to their use. If necessary some of these could be of limited use so there is always a need to get new programs. It might even be possible that the DE's could create these items just as they would functionality modules in driods. Maybe even set it up so that they can be used by droids as well to provide them with additional utility.
What about the crafting stations? Has functionality been implemented for these items yet. I hear conflicting stories about this issue. It would make sense to me that a high functionality station would provide a better product.
High end crafting kits would be a step in the right direction as well. They could make it a schem or possibly a loot drop item (maybe both) This tool should be able to provide mods to assembly and experimentation.
It shouldn't just be about the resources. It should be about the tools as well. Try making a pistol with a blowtorch and a wrench. You might be able to do it but it's not going to be something I would want todepend on.
Just my thoughts
Darknacht:
You're most welcome to work people into a frenzy, but I would just like to point out that, during the brief period of new crafting rules last night, I was able to match 12-point stats on blaster power handlers using only 10 experimentation points and a combination of consumables.
Now, granted, one of the consumables was not in abundant supply on Tempest, due to the low quality of the Tatooine resources required for its manufacture, but the consumables were available. Each crafting attempt did not match the 12-point stats, but even a few times is enough to level the playing field.
This combination of consumables did not have as noticeable an effect pre-patch, and I am left to wonder if the developers anticipated or forgot about these items.
I mention this to point out that while people were whining on Tempest about the stat disparity, there was actually a way to match it. There are far more avenues open to us in this game...
+12 here
Don't hate me cause you ain't me
Seriously though I spent tons of cash and got lucky off a few Tuskens and Nightsisters to get mine. Sorry to hear your but please do not let jealously cloud judgements here. Its all about the resources anyways. If you have superior resources this is a moot point really except for a few extra points to condition or HAM change.
All the tapes allow me to do is add a couple points to something OTHER than damage, that is not an overwhelming advantage, in fact I cannot remember a customer saying "Ooo, 1023 condition, awesome!"
Granted the tape system is terrible, it encourages camping the few spots where they pop, and there is no danger commensurate with the value of the tape. I would prefer these came randomly from an assortment of MOB's rather than from a single cave on Rori.
You could encourage a very lively trade of guns for tapes, if the dangerous place they were found required the combat types to secure them, give them a crate or two of flamers or DX2's in exchange for the tapes - that would be pleasing to both sides.
I do not think the extra two points is worth the price we pay for them.
EdOWar wrote:
I'd be all for BEs being able to make crafting tapes. However, Ithink many of the established 12 point smithswould scream bloody murder about it. After all, they spent millions on theirs and they wouldn't want the rest of us to get our bonuses on the cheap. And it would lead to more competition, which as we've seen from recent events, they don't seem to want.
Slim Vargo, Corbantis
Amusing Note: I'm a ten point smith, more because I don't feel like buying tapes than for any other reason, you I do more business than most other weaponsmiths on Ahazi. My one man shop stocks every weapon, all but 1 grenade type and no mines (but as of sometime next week I'll likely start laying in 1000 of every mine type.
Yes the points are an advantage, but they're not the be all and end all of being an Ahazi weaponsmith.
Soar wrote:
That being said I think this is kind of a silly thing to be worried about, and is a far cry from "tearing at the threads of the player community." Looking at the WS situation, the advantages that a 12 point crafter will enjoy over a 10 point crafter is no big deal when compared to the effects of resource quality. In fact it would be safe to say those two extra points are almost window dressing that a veteran WS could set thier sights on after they have acheived all else.
Oh I agree with this btw
The gap that most of the point 10 WS are complaining about is not caused by tapes. It comes from resources. An older smith will have resources from half a year ago to work for them, a 3 month old smith just wont be able to make weapons of the same quality, even if they had 12 points and the 6 month smith had 10.
Agreed. Case in point, on Ahazi the best Non-Ferrous (Weakem), the Best Ferrous (Emif Steel) and the Best Coppers (Durogop & Picami Coppers) all spawned within the same 3 week span about 4(?) months ago. The best of the bunch (Weakem) now easily sells at 75-100 cpu and that's if it's not a visible auction.
I can even give you an interesting example. As most of you know I only make heavies, munitions and melee. Extra points are lot more important for these weapons than they are for firearms. The charges on heavies are a primary attribute for customers, just like damage and speed are for a gun. Charges relate directly to how many extra points you have to spend. In my whole career of selling heavies I have always only had 10 points, and I have never once felt threatened by a 12 point smith. It always came down to resources in the end.
But part of that is also because most 12 point smiths don't have the time/energy to make heavies. Remember that the work ethic of the smith plays a part too.
I kinda get the feeling that this SEA thing is based more around smiths wanting to be the best and wanting it to be as easy as possible. How is that fair to the players who put in 6 months? If you can't see this then think about the following. How long have you been working on WS? Now halve that time. Now think about a player who has only spent that halved time frame on WS, but who can do everything you can just as good, maybe even better.
My only qubble with this is that they can do that now. It doesn't take much time to switch from being a resource broker to being a weapnsmith. Resource brokers have probably the largest cash stockpiles so can fairly easily purchase what resources they don't have and skill tapes to go with them. But as a larger issue I agree, that 'insta-best-crafter' is a bad thing.
However I do agree that the current loot drop system is messed up. It is AFK campable, and any loot system that is AFK campable is messed up. I'd like to see a fix to this for sure.
Agreed.
I'm still gathering my tapes, I have about 16 points now after 2 months searching in my free time. I traded things for them, bought them on auctions, got given one or two, did favors or bulk jobs for some. All together it was quite a quest. Soon as they fix the skill tape bugs I'll be able to enjoy my rewards. The best thing was I never did anything non-weaponsmith-like to get them. I thought the trials to get my tapes was a great compliment to the proffesion.
Agreed in the sense of the challenge. I think part of my problem is I'm starting to experience Alexander syndrome. It's no really burn-out per say, but in two seperate 1-week instances I churned out like 1300-1500 individual weapons or crates of consumables. It's truly insane. Oh if you don't have a wepsmith kit? Bug me when you get back in game.
The thing is when you are standing at the point where you are faced with the challenge of getting your tapes you can do one of two things. You can accept the challenge, or you can cry "Nerf them! Nerf them!" at the devs. I seem to remember a large amount of jedi-wanna-be players having to make a similar choice right before they introduced holocrons.
That's true up to a point. I'm not calling for a nerf, I just think there should be a better system in place. But then I'm also the guy that thinks experimentation is too narrow, limiting and doesn't allow for enough variety.
-Soar
Message Edited by Soar on 03-17-2004 06:35 PM
Originally when I was grinding to master weaponsmith, I loved the idea of the skill tapes - it is something to strive for after reaching master. Then I found that to do so I was either going to have to camp the caves on Rori or stump up a major amount of money - getting them had nothing to do with the path I'd chosen as weaponsmith. I have a problem with this - it's not very star-warsey, is it? I mean, Obi-wan didn't say to Luke "I've been to Rori, and here's a skill tape to stick to your flight suit that'll help ya with that whole 'torpedo down a ventilation shaft' thing." Nope - there was training and there were trials - that feels right.
It's widely acknowledged that attaining the 'master' title doesn't make you a master weaponsmith. Collecting the right resources, building up skill tapes if possible and having the patience to come up with some great schematics all play a part.Though I think the resources have a bigger part to play than the skill tapes, it still feels wrong to have this artificial method of progression, and I'd love to see it removed and replaced with some kind of quest system to gain extra abilities after master - not just for weaponsmith, but for all classes. The quests should be related to the master's skills - I've posted an example on the 'core systems' board as something I felt would make the game far more star warsey. I think it'd be nice if the devs considered this alternative.
LLJK_Griz wrote:
If they made them craftable they'd required some absurdly rare loot item (like, 10% chance of dropping off a mob that spawns once a day on Dathomir) and even then there would be massive whining from people with SEAs who don't want anyone else to be able to compete with them.
You can shoot down ANY idea by saying "if they implemented that they'd do it poorly, so they shouldn't do it". 
I think what we're talking about here is craftable skill enhancements similar to the existing ones (e.g. using harvested components, not looted ones, evenif it requires 20 kinds of planet-specific organics).
Craftable items that require loot item as components, or looted schematics,are really just loot items with an extra step required.
p4Samwise wrote:
/agree 100%
I'm all for removing dependence on randomly looted components.
The problem is once you remove that dependance all the EQ style loot mongers will scream that they nerfed loot/content.
You can't please all the people all the time.