Weaponsmith Archive

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Message Edited by SeaRaptor on 12-01-2004 09:44 AM

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SeaRaptor wrote:

This is very much a concern and a current issue. No other crafting profession save perhaps Shipwright has to contend with the kinds of "uber" loot drops we do. Nothing drops droids or food or houses/furniture. Dropped clothes and armor are almost universally junk. That leaves us and the Shipwrights having todeal with this.

There will clearly be some sort of conversion formula that will convert current weapons to their appropriate stats/abilities under the new system after the upgrade. What we don't know yet is how exactly that conversion process will take place or what affect it will have on rare drops such as the T-21s you've linked to (we have at least onesimilar T-21 floating around on Tempest, as well as a truly ridiculous SG-82). It's myunderstanding that the current loot changes won't affect these kinds of drops, but it's worth asking. I'll do some more research and see if there's an answer to be found concerning this.

Question: Do you guys mind weapon drops with skill mods? Is it specifically the damage/speed stats that we can't match that bother you, or just the concept of loot weapons in general?

Message Edited by SeaRaptor on 12-01-2004 09:44 AM

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Skill mods are not the problem at all. Heck half of em don't even work. The problem is the damage and dots. Speed is not that much of a problem cause uber speed looted weapons don't make a difference. For example a speedcapped riflemen would see no difference from a 7.5 t21 and a 4.0 t21. Same goes for a lot of other weapons and professions.

I think a few things make us a bit redundant...

Very high power DoT, I dunno what getting rid of them will do, I don't pvp, never have. However I have to say that really high damage just pisses me off, 1900 T21 are ridiculous when mine would be about 2/7 of the power of that one. Granted its rare but still.

Also anyone ever been asked for (quoting a customer) "a uber mind fire dot with like 500 power?"
Maybe make the Enhanced E11 or Mod Rep blaster bleeds more powerful?

Thats an excellent idea Trean! I would love to see that.

But in my own opinion, I really could care less if these "Legendary" weapons are looted by a few people. I have my own clientel, and have had them for a while. they are happy with the quality of weapons that I make for them (I guess they are cuz they keep coming back lol).

But how about implementing some type of quest to certify a MWS to be able to craft some "legendary" weapons? (ala RIS quest MAS have to do). Put the same type of "rare" resource/component drops that are needed for RIS to make them.

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Solscraft wrote:

It would make more sense if rather than providing 'uber' weapon drops as loot,to provide 'uber' resource or weapon enhancement loot drops that would allow MWS the ability to create or re-create these legendary and exceptional weapons.

Acouple examples might be,

playerx loots a legendary pistol barrel. This barrel could be used in any weapon that requires a barrel, but must be used with all legendary components to create the true 'Legendary PistolX'. So if playerx wanted a legendary item, they would have to hunt down a legendary barrel, legendary scope, legendary power handler etc. Maybe even find legendary resource drops (aquired throughloot) and bring all these items to a Weaponsmith to have the item made.

Maybe if playerx wasn't lucky enough to get all the legendary components, they might have the weaponsmith just make the weapon anyway with the components at there disposaland the item would end up being 'Exceptional' instead of legendary after it was crafted.

Obviously, items made with these components should beauto-tagged with (Legendary) or (Exceptional).

What I mean by 're-creating' weapons is maybe rather than having legendary component drops, legendary weapon drops exist, but are broken weapons that require specific resources and a MWS to rebuild the weapon to its original condition.

There are so many possible options that would improve this situation for everyone. Many players like to go loot hunting, so removing the ability to get these great weapons through loot would hurt the game, but leaving things as they stand hurt us Weaponsmiths. The key is to find the right combination to give incentive to looterswhile lettingthe weaponsmiths control the market.

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This idea although good in theory still would not benefit the WS community in any way. You still have legendary weapons being created, instead of looted. The drop rates seem to have increased on legendary stuff in general so this would remain a problem. The ignorant consumer would get another useless question to ask the local weapons, "Do you have any weapons created from legendary parts?". This idea creates more loot that a WS will end up gathering more than anyone else, thus more money out of our pockets and into theirs. Most of all, creation of uber weapons does not tend to solve the problem of uber weapons existing.

Great idea though, like I said, rough on the edges but definitely a solution worth considering.

I am someone who actively goes out and hunts just for said loot and my alt is a WS.
I can say this much... loot is not an issue. If I had to compare the amount of crafted weapons I use compared to looted weapons... the crafted weapons would win by an extraordinary margin.

If I looted a 2k damage T21 do you think I'm gonna take it out to hunt durnis with? No. I am either going to use it in PVP or sell it. Let's not forget that looted items also have condition (lower as a matter of fact) that decays as well, so they will eventually fall apart.

I'm not sure what the poster's problem is with the loot. If you want to prove your point of how common these are... go out and loot one, heck.. go loot a dozen of them and come back and tell us how easy they are to get. I don't think I'll be hearing from you on that one though.

That is my opinion as a looter and as a weaponsmith.

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Astrolite wrote:
I can say this much... loot is not an issue. If I had to compare the amount of crafted weapons I use compared to looted weapons... the crafted weapons would win by an extraordinary margin.

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Message Edited by SeaRaptor on 12-03-2004 09:54 AM

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SeaRaptor wrote:

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Astrolite wrote:I can say this much... loot is not an issue. If I had to compare the amount of crafted weapons I use compared to looted weapons... the crafted weapons would win by an extraordinary margin.

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Part of me wants to agree with this... but part of me does not. Here's why.

PvP in it's current form has basically become DoT wars. Whoever has the bigger, better DoT wins in many cases (not all). Virtually all weapons with DoTs, as you no doubt know, are loot drops. At least one relatively popular profession -- Pikeman -- has such crappy crafted weapons available to it that PvP Pikeman use almost EXCLUSIVELY looted pikes. Many players have VENDORS FULL of looted weapons, most of them with DoTs built-in.

Now I realize that the original poster is referring mainly to "legendary" drops, which are quite rare. For me, the problem extends beyond them, though. We lose tons of sales to people buying loot weapons for PvP (because PvPers tend to be the biggest spenders on armor and weapons, and rightly so). Your average PvE'er will settle for a crafted weapon, because most mobs are pathetically weak compared to a buffed and armored player.

But PvPers will spend virtually anything to gain an edge over their opponents. This is fine, that's their bag. What I am concerned about is that many of them aren'tbuying from us. They are investing millions in legendary weapons and looted weapons with DoTs because we can't craft stuff that good. THAT is the problem.

It is not an epidemic, per se. I venture to guess that most of us still do healthy businesses in spite of this. But it should be a concern for all of us, because where does it end? Where will you and I be as weapon crafters in another 18 months after THREE YEARS worth of good loot weapons are in circulation? It is the escalation that concerns me, and that is why I added it to our list.

Message Edited by SeaRaptor on 12-03-2004 09:54 AM

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Yep, this is one of the main reasons I made this post. When I originally made the post, I was quite heated about the multiple legendary drops I had seen being sold on Starsider within a matter of weeks or possible days of eachother. This then shined through into my post, but the real idea I wanted to get across is that a huge portion of our once customer base is being slowly taken away because master weaponsmiths cannot make the best stuff in the galaxy. The idea that the mentality towards what is a great weapon is also changing because once again, loot supplies are increasing and because of their scarce usage scenarios they aren't decaying into oblivion.

So this is why we made SeaRaptor our coorespondant, because he can see through my rage in my original post and pick out the real issue that I am trying to push.