So I can have a single thread to point our devs at, lets get a single comprehensive thread on your thoughts and examples of how (and which) looted items are better than crafted.
My experience so far is that the major blunder is capacitors, followed by engines (low YPR on crafted) and, honestly, weapons (low Vs. A and Vs. S drop damage (.5 avg compared to .6 or more on loot).
Share some examples of what you've found on a consistent basis that is always better than what we can loot.
For instance: I'm finding most level 2 or 3 looted capacitors with approx 800-900 total energy and a recharge of anywhere from 32 to 35. My crafted (with very good materials) maxes at about 700 energy, with about 23 recharge. Usually at twice the mass as well. Just not worth making.
Keep in mind there will be loot that is better, that won't go away. It seems that the frequency needs to be toned down. I'm using a lot of loot in my own ships and my parts are free. It was worse in beta. My ships were almost 100% loot. Is this happening to you and your customers?
Well, until I get all the level 6-10 loot pieces that I want to RE...nothing is unbalanced.
After I do that, then weapons have MUCH better modifiers to shields and armor (plus combining disruptors with ion cannons in RE lets in insane modifiers...which is cool for a pilot like me I guess!) than my crafted ones do...my 18k crafted reactor can't compete with the RE one I just made for 1/5 of the mass and 16k energy (use that sucker on a fast little ship, yum!) and I consistently see high reactor energy generation on loots. Capacitors are of course broken, I usually average 35-47 on level 6-8 drops...dunno if that's too high or not. Shields: don't loot many for some reason, but loot WEIRD ones (826 front HP, 2600 back, 12 regen, level 6?!?)
You know what, it seems ALL the level 6 stuff I loot is WAY better than the level 7 stuff I can craft. Even my experimental blasters aren't better than most of the level 6 guns I've looted.
Again, that could just be a luck thing.
=)
================================================================ The Infamous Mercenary Apolleon "Ahazi" Leed, and his alter ego Kristoff "The Fu" Leed, Pilot Extraordinaire
A few thoughts. While it might be a good idea to collect "evidence" to strengthen our case, I don't actually feel it should be necessary at all. The devs know exactly what the stats are on both crafted and looted parts. They also know exactly what the drop frequency of looted parts is. So I personally feel it is more important that we argue our case on why it is bad for the game that looted parts are better than crafted parts.
Technically there is one important reason that especially higher level loot will too often beat crafted parts. This has to do with reverse-engineering versus experimentation during crafting. For instance, if you RE 6 lvl 6 components, you basically have the possibility of maximising 6 stats. When experimenting, you can generally only maximise 1 stat. This in itself is a cause of unbalance for parts like engines where there are many important stats.
1. Add more limited use schematics that can be aquired through reverse engineering like the Firespray schematic can be. For example, create a couple rare schematics for new guns that are comprobable to a high-quality looted gun. Then, whenever a shipwright RE's a looted gun, have there be a chance that he will get on of these new limited use schematics. Two or three of these rare schematics for each component type would be pretty decent.
2. Add an enhancer slot on crafted components, and everytime a shipwright RE's a looted component have there be a slight chance that he will be able to produce a small number of these enhancers. For example, let's say that a shipwright is reverse engineering a looted engine, and he gets lucky and is rewarded with three enhancer items which he can later use to improve the pitch, yaw, and roll stats on three of his own crafted engines.
Master Pilot - Adonis Overstar Pre-NGE Weaponsmith/Armorsmith - Ulrech Overstar
I dont know I think that it is prety close to being perfect. I like that there is a chance that Looted parts will be better then SW crafted items. Thay dont last forever so let people brag that thay have this or that. I think tha tthe Devs could take a look at Caps, Engins, and Reactors. I would like to see them drop the really good ones as thay are verry inportant for the small mass ships bu tmake them drop the good ones less. The crafted Caps, and Engins coold be a bit better still. As far as crafted weps? My server is hooked up on great resources for Weps. I can craft weps that are way better then almost all loot at the same component use level. If I had one complaint about crafted weps it would be energy per shot at high level. In my guild we have 11 master pilots and thay each have found 1 wep that is better then what I can craft. I do not find that ratio bad because thay hooked up 1 ship with the realy good loot and the rest had to be outfited with my stuff. except thay are all running looted Caps but the looted caps I had to RE to get as good as needed. I for one dont want to have to craft caps and engins because there is so much time involved in crafting weps, chassis, armor, and shields. All of these I can outcraft loot 4 to 1 per level. meaning for every 4 I craft there is 1 that is a match or better. Not a bad ratio at all.
Just bring down the Uber Engine, Capacitor, and some Reactors drop rate a little bit and we are set. Tier 4 chassis and Master lvl Chassis resource requirements could be droped a bit I would be set. Maby drop each ones steel requirements buy 20,000Units. Thanks fo rkeeping up on this stuff.
Server:Sunrunner Player City:Libertas, Naboo O'Kef Starcruzer Master Shipwright/Artisin/ Some TK I am always happy to help as long as you are not a griefer
A few thoughts. While it might be a good idea to collect "evidence" to strengthen our case, I don't actually feel it should be necessary at all. The devs know exactly what the stats are on both crafted and looted parts. They also know exactly what the drop frequency of looted parts is. So I personally feel it is more important that we argue our case on why it is bad for the game that looted parts are better than crafted parts.
Technically there is one important reason that especially higher level loot will too often beat crafted parts. This has to do with reverse-engineering versus experimentation during crafting. For instance, if you RE 6 lvl 6 components, you basically have the possibility of maximising 6 stats. When experimenting, you can generally only maximise 1 stat. This in itself is a cause of unbalance for parts like engines where there are many important stats.
The fact still remains though that they like to have all their eggs in one basket. And not to knock them (devs) or anything, but its not always true that they know exactly what is happening in game. Often times it looks good in beta or on paper and turns out completely different due to a misplaced decimal point or what have you. They ship it off to live and head off to do something else (like the CU), and we get a week or two to see whats actually going on. If we have 20 posts with 5-10 replies about loot > crafted, it's hard for me to make a compelling case.
As for the RE bonuses, yeah I'm starting to see this as a problem and an obvious overcompensation of a once useless system. RE used to be very difficult and rare - needing identical items and averaging the stats. Perhaps a middle of the road option would have been better.
Loot vs. Crafted is an argument thats only heating up, and so it will be addressed. Lets help point them to the right places right off the bat so they can take a look at what is going on...
I think capacitors, shields, reactors and boosters all need to have they're stats increased when they are "hand made." engines still need to be sorted as well.
the looted components are far better. the only looted stuff that i, myself, have come across which is not better than what we can craft is weapons. I cant say anything about the higher end weapons but a "hand built" heavy blaster is better than any weapon i have looted yet.
the pyr of engines needs an increase as well. the engine i use in my ship is a lvl 3 nubian which has a top spd of 61.9 and ypr of 53.4
I crafted an mrk 3 engine yesterday with 61.2spd and only 43.5 ypr. when i allocated all my experimentation to speed it only went up to 62.2 so 6 points of expermenting gives me an increase of 1.0
Shipwrights should be able tro make the best stuff out there otherwise all we are is blueprint designers.
"Jedi. Their order is a fading light in the dark. corrupt and arrogant.They must be punished." - Asaj Ventress Clone wars Micro series
Its a mass issue and a Qual issue on all items. Most every loot item has lower mass then is possible with 1000 resources if the loot items are worth keeping. Now add to that putting this into a RE kit:
1) Level 2 capacitor
900 mass
500 energy drain
200 charge
10 recharge
1) Level 2 capacitor
10000 mass
19000 energy drain
950 charge
39 recharge
The numbers a little off the wall. But this is not far out side of the realm of what happens regularly. Hey I just looted a Level 7, 13K mass 29K energy reactor. This should be a "legendary" item, not common place. I have level 2, 2-4K mass 10-15K energy reactors, like 3 of em in a back pack?!? This anywhere near what would ever be crafted? I dont think so..
As a master shipwright I dont go looking for that uber ***** resource to make that perfect ******. I launch into space, group up, go hit tier 4 spawns and go to kessel. I come home with 3 or 4 parts every time that would be considered exceptional or legendary in the ground game AND like 200K cr to "transfer to bank account". So either SOE wants this to be a loot driven or player crafter game, IMHO it's that simple. Or do they want JTL loot driven and SWG:Ground to be crafter driven. They can't say they want JTL to be player crafter driven and have the loots be better in the QTY they are.
------------------------------ Below is what I posted in the Bug/Issue thread -----------------------------
I feel the rest is really moot because not much other than missle-counter/measure packs are viable to sell as a shipwright for most. I feel even with a 30%-50% reduction in crafted components mass we will not come close to looted components. We need much higher craftable values and much smaller mass across the board!!!
I have a master SW character and I will never need to craft myself a reactor/capacitor/droid interface/engine because I have so many looted ones that I will never, even with perfect 1000 resources, be able to craft anything close.
And as far as decay goes? Well after some of the things like engines get too low, I will just RE them with 6 other level 6 motors and get the armor and hp back up. I know this only works once. But for me it means that I probably will not need another engine for another year or more. And I (just like everyone who will want to compete) am storing these nice looted components for myself: i.e.
the many level 1 >500 mass >500 energy 15 second droid interfaces
Capactors over 40 recharge under 15000 mass
So unless we can get our crafted numbers to be better than 95% of the looted components allready stored in space loot houses out there, we will never get caught up. They can adjust the loot all they want, won't make a difference IMHO. The answer?
Raise the crafted numbers with 80% resources (all green) to the 90th percentile of the best space loot they have ever let into the game.
So the worst that happens with my solution? You end up with many players that out class the NPC's out there. The simple fix for this? All you do is up the AI numbers of the NPC ships to match. So easy a solution; increade their speed, armor, and hit per shot. Very easy to tweak along the way.
This way you keep the best equipment (minus the rare exceptional loot) in the hands of the crafters, available to all players, and a fair playing field.
Anything else and we have a loot game in space and a crafters ground game nothing more.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- - In rememberance of our friend, Luckky Johnson (Toni Sinclair) "Every day I feel like I am opening a present when I double-click the SWG icon"-Vorpaks Thanks bud...now, about the Garment habit of yours. You need an intervention! - Calculus_Entropy /flex - n'Jessi ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been meaning to sit down with a spreadsheet, some resources and a bunch of pre and post RE loot items, just to see what the facts are.
General impression is that there seems to be a strong case that the looted items are far better than crafted, before RE'ing, and the items mentioned seem to be the main culprits.
I'm pretty surprised this happened though, I expected the system to just take the same basic limits to the stats that crafted items have and then use some statistical spread - perhaps a normal distribution - to pull numbers for the device.
This would give maybe 1 in 10 or 20 chance of an exceptional stat -per stat-, but within the normal crafted ranges. So a normal looted item might be useless, might be useful but generally doesn't beat crafted (apart from on price). A cunningly RE'd component *will* typically beat crafted, but will be really rare.
But they seem to have gone for something simpler(?) and much more error prone.. It looks harder to fix though.
To get a really good looted component you really need to RE it and combine stats. And it is us that do the RE. So collecting loot and turn them into really amazing items is one of our tasks and IMO require more skill than crafting. However, we might turn into RE monkeys that RE for people that bring us their own loot. This will probably happen when people get more knowledge about which items are good to RE together, But many are lazy and prefer to pay for a RE item. We can also control how many who want us to RE by how much we charge.
But still, looted items better than a good crafted should be an exception. Maybe 1 out of 10 items should have exceptional stats.
Tough thing to balance for devs. Loot should not kill the crafted market but stilll be fun for non-sw. In some way it would be good if subcomponents dropped instead, but OTOH I already have a lot of tells (and custom orders) in my WS business from people who either want me to make a custom weapon or ask if the item is good or not.
--- Bermag [SiyBer Arms]
ex-NGE 12 pt Master Weaponsmith/FS Crafting Mastery- Wanderhome Corellia: (Coronet -200, -5500) Dantooine Imp op -4422 -2383 High quality and low price Now playing Eve
So I can have a single thread to point our devs at, lets get a single comprehensive thread on your thoughts and examples of how (and which) looted items are better than crafted.
My experience so far is that the major blunder is capacitors, followed by engines (low YPR on crafted) and, honestly, weapons (low Vs. A and Vs. S drop damage (.5 avg compared to .6 or more on loot).
Share some examples of what you've found on a consistent basis that is always better than what we can loot.
For instance: I'm finding most level 2 or 3 looted capacitors with approx 800-900 total energy and a recharge of anywhere from 32 to 35. My crafted (with very good materials) maxes at about 700 energy, with about 23 recharge. Usually at twice the mass as well. Just not worth making.
Keep in mind there will be loot that is better, that won't go away. It seems that the frequency needs to be toned down. I'm using a lot of loot in my own ships and my parts are free. It was worse in beta. My ships were almost 100% loot. Is this happening to you and your customers?
Message Edited by styx66 on 11-22-2004
I have to disagree with the fact of dropping the rate of drops due to the fact of the way we get disks is through RE. So with that being said I think they need to LOWER the stats on ALL looted stuff to be comparable with our craft abilities. Otherwise a. we will have to raise prices that we pay for parts to RE, and b. this will raises the price of firesprays through the roof. We already get complained to about our prices on ships can u imagine when we are charging 30 million for a firespray.
So with that being said I think the stats need to be dropped on ALL the loot and keep some "uber" loot thats rare to make us more of a valuable asset. These values should have never been added to begin with if our craft abilities were going to be so low. We had discussed this in beta and it was still not able to be changed back then. so I hope something can be done for us soon.
Just wanted to comment on looted weapons in my experience:
Although often they have both A/S vs values at 0.6ish, they usually have slower refire rate and significantly higher energy per shot. I have yet to loot a single weapon which I would consider to be comparable to shipwright made ones. Only exception is the weapon I got at 4444 rebel (I believe), which has 14.1 energy / shot and nice dmg (but same > 0.4 refire rate).
SLK wrote: Why cant loot be subcomponents like in the groundgame? Would make some nice interaction
I feel like the current loot system is great. It makes it so you don't EXCLUSIVELY need to contact a shipwright for items (although they still play an important part).
The ability to ALSO loot a limited use schematic (we already do loot random funny data disks), exceptional components (only good one - the excessive dropping of crap components in the ground game seriously sucks) and such isn't a bad idea. Perhaps as a bonus, allow RE to randomly yield these times IN ADDITION TO the normal item.
As a Pilot the system works great. A majority of my components are made by shipwrights. Some are looted, some are RE'd loot.
I agree that caps, boosters and engines are where shipwright needs the most help.
