Weaponsmith Archive

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HantTeath wrote:

What's people thought on the weapon caps? Do you think its a Hinderence to our proffesion, or is it to "Balance" the game?

Myself, well, it's a double edged sword.

Since I can remember, I was always cautious approaching certain people in PvP in my server, because everyone knew they had an extremely high quality ("Uber") weapon. It was what helped make people stand out in the crowd, and what defined true High QualityWeaponsmiths, from the average run of the bunch.

Weapon caps for me seem to limit the Weaponsmiths who could be achieving more! I knowthere are some weapons I made, that I wished hadn't capped out, because I was left with points I wanted to put somewhere, and I couldn't, or maybe my resources were so good that the Items were capping at assembly. But either way, I've been feeling like my WS just hasn't been able to fully attain what he should be able to, and quiet frankly it frustrates my to no ends.

Not only does it affect the WS itself, but the people who buy the weapons. It is almost as if we are creating a new breed of clones, all these people with Weapons that will 9/10 be the same stats, and no one's really differenciating, apart from the lower end weapons (Non enhanced)

However, I can also see the "Balancing" side of things. Though it was cool to see someone running around with a Jawa Ion that would hit your mind for around 800 Damage, it was also what could be frustrating. Sometimes it's hard when you may be low on funds and can't afford to buy that "uber" T-21 with max damage that's 10 times the damage of the Rifle you considered "Good". Not only that, but those people who owned such "Uber" weapons, basicly were far above everyone else, and had no real challenge, as their weapons were far superior to others.

All in all, there are Negatives to the Caps, but also Positives.

What's everyone else think of it?

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My personal take on it is that it was a workable situation, until the powercells/casings etc hit the game, and now the caps are hindering our profession. Capped weapons are nothing special or rare anymore,. Remove the damage cap, and allow truly rare and uber weapons to be crafted.

IMHO, the stats of pre-cu weaponshad little to do with their "uberness", it was the dotted weapons everyone had, or wanted to have, that defined "uber".

Well, the cool thing about pre-cu, although I didn't see it as an advantage at the time for making more weapons in the future was that most "uber" weapons were dependent on a the right slice...you didn't know if it was going speed or damage and you didn't know how high it was gonna be. So...if you crafted one for someone and the slice didn't work out, they'd be back in your shop for another one later

Also, eventually these weapons wore out and you could make a new one for someone. Now the ADK has ended that.

I suggested a "soft cap" on another threadsomewhere (at a cost like a power up). This would allow to extend past the cap but cost you in other areas. So, if you wanted to bump up your damage by another 4 points past the cap, maybe it cost ya 2 points in SAC to do that (whatever the balance may be). That would allow for more creativity in the weapons but keep balance.

To put a twist on things on my combat toon-

I have 3 "capped" out weapons I made for myself with 3 ADK's. I never have to buy another weapon again. I'm done with weapons. I got them covered.

Now to ADK my armor with all the CA's so I can be done with that and never have to worry about buying armor again.

After that, I don't have to worry about money again after that cuz I already have the CA's, the weapons and will never have to buy armor again. Hmmm...I don't ever have to loot anything again after that or craft another weapon with my alt. because I won't need any money, I won't need anything. I won't have any goals or things to work forunless I'm a PVP'r.

hehe unfortunately, this is reality for me in the game. I have hit my limits, so not only a crafting breaker, but a game breaker. I'm bored

For most people playing MMORPGs there is a few factors that make then stick to the same game for a long period of time (ive probably forgot a few, but bear with me ):

1. Community


2. New Stuff (dungeons, quests, new planets etc.)


3. Progress

What the caps does is they efficiently exterminate the last point.

• Post CU People can pretty easily cap out on their skilltapes (speed and acc and defenseas the important ones).


• Most peole have capped or close to capped armour


• A lot of people have capped weapons or close to capped.


• A lot of WS have capped most weapons or been close to capping.


• Only having 2 damage types ingame has resulted in most pvpers having weapons with bot damage types capped or close to capped

SWG was never about levling up, but about enhancing and progressing your character. Taking one of the major factors of people staying out of the game seems very unwise to me and leads to people getting bored with the game contend aswell. Why should the fighter go hunt the krayts when they are capped out on everything possible, they cant use the tissues and they cant use the credits.

My hope is that the caps are loosened up a bit. As I said in the beginning I realize the problem with PVP and to an extend PVE (outdamaging and spawn campers), but there has to be a better wy of solving this without leveling the playfield completely.

I have no real solution to the problem as we speak, though chumpleskin might be on to something with soft caps and penalties. IMO there needs to be done something overall with the caps in general though as I see it as a major problem, not only for our profession, but for the game as whole

As a weaponsmith and combat player I see the need for caps, but they are currently to low. SAC and Speed caps are fine as they are. Damage caps should have been calculated as follows ----> theoretical max damage using all perfect resources + maximum value of loot enhancer. For example lets say the max an ALR could hit with all perfect resources is 1000 and the max krayt tissue looted is 300. The max crafting cap of an ALR would be 1300. Would 1300 ever be reached, probably not, but it would allow for a little more variety and uberness to current weapons.

Personally I would like to see it a little more difficult to hit the SAC cap on rifles and carbines. I can easily cap SAC, I cap most on final combine, others require 1 point into efficiency.

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Asir_SWG wrote:
Caps are a game breaker - one of the main reasons I left the AS business.... With armor, even without enhancements it is easy to cap, thus any variation in quality of the product was gone....

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so true. multi-capping every high-end weapon multiple times over and over, i finally have come to a point I thought i would never see: boredom with Weaponsmith. In the good days (pre-cu) virtually every weapon was worth enhancing and since there were no caps there was always the chance of topping your last best one. The sheer diveristy and experimental possibilities were endless.

now, make the same half dozen weapons over and over, cap cap cap...ho hum. oh another 540-1184 sac capped trando...yaaayy :/

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BloodMonk wrote:
the only "unbalanced" weapons before were looted weapons......crafted weapons never were overpowered imo

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I'd say you're 99.9% correct, however every once in a while pre-CU, someone would loot some extremely rare exceptional or legendary advanced barrels, and then pair one of them up withsome exceptional of legendary krayt tissues. In fact, I seem to remeber a screenshot of someone way back when FWG5s took both a feedmech and a powerhandler putting one together with a legendary barrel, a legendary krayt tissue, and a nice Nym feeder. Granted, for every gun like that, there were 20 looted uber guns, but you get the point.

As for the weapon caps in the game right now, they should just turn them into soft caps. As a combat player, I don't need to have a weapon that's massively better than what I have right now, to feel like I'm making progress. Most players would be content if at least some progress was possible, even if all that "progress" was was a gun that was 2%-3% better than what the average player has.

Don't get me started

Weaponsmith to CU conversion was totally bodged -plain and simple.

lol what you actually say is the problem weren't only looted guns but also legendary (dunno why they didn't just call those way-over-the-top-bad-idea) loot

the new system is just too simplistic... and it gives you less options when it comes templates, specific use ...hell just about everything....and that's the stuff I love to do actually...

here's a few examples what I could do pre-curb but not now:

I loved commando so for some reason I went M commando smuggler (later took up carbines 2002)

I needed a way to state up and posture change people....my only option was a carbine with marksman!!!!!! specials...

because I wanted to state up not damage I could counter the very very poor speed and accuracy from markman carbines by getting a krayted/scoped/stocked DH17 with +116 accuracy....with accuracy food I could even hit defense stackers with it....with only MARKSMAN skills....

also I refused to believe commando was "useless except for pve" and that the consumables sucked, so I had special batches of consumables made with +70 to +90 accuracy....

people went nuts when they got killed by rocketlaunchers and heavy particle beams cannons...lol I'd start with the carb and kite em till they're stated and dizzy/KD, then got to 48 or 54m (ideal range for HPBC and RL), then I'd /aim /aim /kneel and fire away....hitting for quite some nice damage...

after commando I went MBH and at that time MBH was my only combat prof...

now MBH had a REALLY cool weapon...but yet again it supposedly "sucked" so I went to my WS buddy with some decent tissue (+100 -0.5 or so I think) and a looted barrel, worse damage and speed than a crafted one, but with +31 accuracy..

the end result was an LLC with 3s speed (sliced to 2s) 820 max damage and +90 accuracy...

due to FS speed I could fire a lightningsingle2 4 times in 5 seconds with this pup.....effectively meaning that if I hit you with this LLC when you're KD you're DEAD 90% comp or not (I saw up to 1600 damage through armour with this weapon).

was it unbalanced? I don't think so as heawy weapons acc was soooooo poor you had a hard time hitting people, so again you were forced to state up and dizzy/kd to use.....the only person I got to kill while he was running was a mcommando lol (they had aobut 0 defenses)....and even on him I still missed more than half the time....But when it hit it hit pretty hard

there loads of things like this you could do....which are impossible now...Actually the only weapons that you might be able to makewith an "alternative" approach now are yet again commando weapons (I'm think of going m commando with some smuggler and pistoleer on my main, making some "group" pvp commando weapons with my WS.....those will be made to max out elemental damage and speed)

this was my blurb.....thx for reading it

PS: every single cool weapon I had converted to rubbish....That uber llc now has 110dps /cry