Weaponsmith Archive
Thread: Retirement is where every Master Craftsperson is headed
First, quit hijacking my thread! 
Second, I never played beta, didn’t know anything about the game except what was on the website. Not in a PA, never have been. (Didn’t know what PA meant for a couple of weeks) Didn’t know about factory experience until 3 weeks after release. (Didn’t have a factory)
Some quick stories, first day, I’m running around surveying metal...and then I go to craft a cdef...I think "How cool is this? I can craft in the field and gather resources at the same time" but I spend about 2 hours attempting to get chemicals with my mineral survey tool. Frustrated, I saw someone else surveying and asked him...he told me about the other survey equipment and off I was running. I made rifles, because that’s what sold. I put them on the bazaar for 250 each. As people would log onto the game with the 250 creds the empire gave them, they would put it in my pocket. It wasn’t any trick I used...it was knowing that everyone was new, and had 250 creds as they logged in.
Would you believe I was such a newb as to not know what experimentation was until after about 5-6 days of release? Crafting the whole time? I’d sit out in the field crafting away not doing any experimentation because I didn’t understand the game. But that helped me. Because I was always getting resources, always crafting while I was logged in.
The other thing that helped me was that no one else understood the game either. Because the AWFUL crap that I was crafting in the field would still sell.
Played quite a bit in my opinion, but only after I put my two kids to bed and work 40+ hours a week.
The key to success that I had was that I really, really, really enjoyed crafting. Like I would log in and do nothing but craft, sample, and go to the bazaar. That and I was on the leading edge of what could be crafted as the server matured. For me, I was a Master Weapon Craftsperson before I knew it. Did I grind? Didn’t really have to, everything normally sold. But I did grind for the last stupid 77K box in grenades (Do people make these?) Took 6 hours. On a Sunday night after the family went to bed. Told my spouse and they looked at me like I was nuts. "Honey, I made master last night!" ...long pause....I get a very puzzled look -- "What time did you go to bed last night?" Ah well.
Now? I don’t know if success could come as easily, the money that made it very easy for me isn’t there. Ive tried to help others, gave 250K to one fella to help him get going and 100K to another who needed cash for the harvesters. Assorted purchases from non-master weapon crafters at 10K for any gun they make. 10K here, 20k there. Trained everyone that asked. But do I feel like I cheated to get master? The answer is I didn’t know how to cheat, so how could I?
so sad.. and yet so true..
I'm close to the point of shutting up as well and but up /afkmessage no and turn on my Novice Scout tag or something..
Hey Dac - sorry for the Hijack...
I think my problem was that I wanted to craft, I wanted to fight, I wanted to play music AND I wanted to dance. There were so many 'things' to do (the newness factor that wears off after a week) that I couldn't specialize. I was having too much fun just being in the game and playing. Meanwhile, the dedicated (you) knew EXACTLY what you wanted to do from the get-go.
So, I'm sorry if I offended anyone with regards to exploiting or using bugs or whatever to get to Master levels and such. I didn't mean to use it as a blanket statement for all Masters - and I apologize if anyone took it that way.
Ok...no more posts from me on this thread. Unless it's about retirement...promise... 
Star Lin
I don't think that everyone cheated, that is why I referred to the full factory XP bug as a "bug" and not an exploit. I think some people recognized a spade as a spade and played the situation to their advantage, and I think others were out power grinding next to 5 factrories saying, **edit**, that 10% sure is alot.
I'm not envious, and I am gonna do my grind like the remainder of the weaponsmiths. I don't have that much time to play (this is where everyone says, "Why did you want to be teh crafter j00 n00b"). This is where I tell the powergamers, thanks for not having a life and ruining the XP tables for those of us that do. I think the longest that I can grind is for 30 minutes before I just can't take it any more. That gives me enough time to make 30 or so DL20's (15000xp). So 30 minutes of that per night, so I should master in about 60 days of grinding to make master. ROFL, 2 months of brain dead clicking. It's nice to know that the money is so gonna be worth it.
oohhaahh (plus a few more letters):
We _hope_ that "the money is so going to be worth it" cause wouldn't it be a pisser if due to market demand and credit stagnation that a top of the line gun would only go for $500? 
Yeah...I'm laughing and crying at the same time...
The whole fact of the matter is that threads like this prove that Novices will make it to Master eventually, and they will still have a place to sell whatever weapons they want.
The current Masters are pulling out their hair to keep up with demand. (Of course, they don't think to raise prices, but that's another story) Novices only have a problem at Novice...get 1 or 2 skillboxes, and you're going to start seeing some sort of positive cash-flow, if you play the market well and not try to bump heads with an already-established Master (Competition is to be avoided...major rule of economics). It's really the same as with any profession...
But I still plan on staying master as long as I have an account, since I will use it to fund high end PvP. I probably will be a WS, Smuggler, TKA, and will need to buy crate loads of top quality knucklers to get 40% sliced. Crates od Tatoine Sunburns and Neutron Pixie. Tons of expensive armor (personal sheild gens mabey?), and when the new droids come out, a bulk supply of top end battle droids (I assume stuff like Droiddeks will cost in the 100k range(and be awesome, or at least decent)).
PvPing requires tons of funding.
The AFK messages are downright hilarious. But more seriously, there does need to be some way to drain money from the economy. I personally vote for selling FS slots for 50 million credits.
On the subject of "exploits" and Master Weaponsmiths:
Generally, my opinion on the subject is that it's unneeded spite and jealousy based off of poor assumptions, just like the unneeded spite and jealousy towards *any* Player Associations and Master Weaponsmiths in them.
I guarantee that at least half of the server-firsts for Master Weaponsmiths got it by hand-grinding.
Why? Because nobody knew the 100% exp thing. Even anyone from beta thought they were 10% experience, and the only way to figure out otherwise was to test it yourself, it took awhile for even a few of us pretty adept at the profession to figure it out. And it took a month before this misinformation stopped and people started posting things about "Master Weaponsmith in 16 hours".
Hell, just using factories period was difficult to learn, since they were so terribly broken in beta, most couldn't even have an advantage with factory knowledge.
The main edge beta testers had was knowing their way around cities, the basicin-game featuresand understanding crafting and experimentation. Being able to knowthe citiesof Naboobetter than the back of my hand gave me an advantage. And that stuff didn't have any hugely major changes go into it, unlike harvesters and factories, which skewed our previous knowledge.
But this "factory exploit" and "huge PA helped them" crap is nonsense. There aren't any Powerlevel-Our-Weaponsmith 200-member PAs. They just don't exist, you can't have that kind of domination over a bunch of players to convince them to drop their weapons and sample for you day in and day out, or run tedious missions to pay for 100 harvesters, this early in the game. It's just stupid paranoia. No Weaponsmith was able to have 5 factories and the Steel to support a power-level fest to get Master in the first week, or the first three weeks. Most of the first Masters worked mostly alone and were just powergamers with a large tolerance for carpal tunnel, who just took advantage of things like UXP andstarted quickly sellingguns before hardly anyone else had Firearms I. That tactic got you to Master a great deal faster than using one factory to grind barrels while you constantly mined Steel. Factory-made guns didn't give UXP, so that was a disadvantage.
And then after the factory nerf, suddenly all of these Novices come out of the woodwork to scream about how they should have their experience revoked. They didn't say a **edit** thing before the nerf, because these lower-tier smiths were all using the same damned "exploit", and they're just upset that they couldn't make Master in time. I saw many of the same lower-tier smiths who made several posts asking if they could get the exp faster in a factory than by hand, suddenly screaming for nerfs on these Masters.
If you felt it was an exploit and never used it, more power to you. But most used it anyway, if they admit it or not, and didn't have a problem until it was taken away from them before they could beat anyone else. So I don't have a lot of respect for the cheats who claim such nonsense and spout it off at every given opportunity.
Oh, and for the record, I took advantage of the factory bug for the Munitions tree (yuck) and part of the Melee tree. I had no idea it was going to be changed, and never knew about how the exp worked in beta. I told every Weaponsmith to ask me how to gain exp about it, and never withheld any information from them for my benefit. But evenif I knew about it on day one, it's not like I could have powerlevelled myself with all of myONE factory I had in the second week, where I'd have to wait5 hours for it to finish Blaster Power-handlers to hand-grind guns, and my couple of Steel harvesters for grinding that barely pulled in anything.
Starlin wrote:
oohhaahh (plus a few more letters):
We _hope_ that "the money is so going to be worth it" cause wouldn't it be a pisser if due to market demand and credit stagnation that a top of the line gun would only go for $500?
Yeah...I'm laughing and crying at the same time...
then they can go fetch the darn resources.. lol. I hate near-death encounters with Aquilash commandos that ALWAYS spawn near my medium harvesters no mater WHERE i move them.
I acctually only read part of the first page. So if this has been addressed, sorry.
The biggest problem with the economy is that money is FAR to easy to get. Don't get me wrong, I like eazy money, but this is insane.
If you remember in "A New Hope" when they went to Mos Eisley(sp?) and go find Han, they say they'll need transport and need to avoid Imperials. TO which he replies "Thats the real trick isn't it. And its going to cost you something extra. 15 thouand, all in advance." 15k is NOTHING in this game. Luke then says "15 thousand!? We could almsot buy our own ship for that!".
Now lets think. More than 40k can be spent on one pet alone. Weapons, and armour prices are through the roof. Can you imagine how much ships are going to cost when they become avaliable? Realistically, IMO, destroy missions should give 50 credits not 1.5k credits(for standard planets, not Yavin or Endor). That would seriously cause the economy to level out. I mean it should really take time to get the money for High Tier eapons, it shouldn't jes be a one day deal. And with the decay rates of weapons right now, they'd stick around for a good long time.
Also, yeah. If you've gone pure-crafter proffessions. You'll get bored, fast. But think about it. Whats there to do after you master a combat profession and deck out all your gear? Thats why they made it so you can surrender your skills and migrate your stats. The point is that you WILL eventually get bored enough and fed up and switch, and it'll take a good long time to have mastered EVERY profession. Not to mention by that time you'll prolly have opened the FS slot(Please no FS slot flames). And you'll have to spend the next few years trying to master that. SO all in all, SOE expects you to play the game till all the content is gone for you, which will probably take roughly 2-3 years even for a power-gamer. ANd probably in excess of a decade for a casual gamer.
If you get fed up, switch. But the player base is big enough, that for every time you switch, there is another who will take your place. This system of geting fed up with your profession eventually is all another system of number control that this game has becomeknown by.