I believe that it's all about having fun... if we are not having fun then why pay to play? in this balance is the key. What I see being discussed here is the method of obtaining balance.
hmm. My 2 cents: I'm favoring the crafted item boost angle. It's a tough call because i see so many interesting aspects to this prof. Ship Comps, RE of loot, repair kits (of which I still have oodles on my vendor after more than a month) and the Chasis.
so far the only items that I have NOT seen as space loot has been missiles and Counter-measure devices. I'm not sure anyone even uses them anymore...lol... seriously.. those two items have been my most popular item and my vendor is not even located in a high traffic area.
but back to the discussion at hand. if we are going to get a change in the SW prof... i say tweak the craftables a bit to make them stand out.
===Boosters (extremely low top speed/acceleration values).
===Droid Interfaces (all round).
===Engines (Only in regards to Yaw, Pitch, Roll values).
Mentioned parts that are fine as they are (as far as I'm concerned):
===Weapons: A low shields/armor effectiveness was mentioned, to this I say that's what subcomponents are for.
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People, let's just remember, that some loot SHOULD be better than craftable stuff. Please stop calling for the loot nerfs. I'm an Ace Pilot and a MSW; I get plenty of sales, and use primarily Reverse Engineered stuff. It's just like any loot: if you want the best, get a Krayt weapon.
Well currently if I'm not mistaken you can only add one subcomponent to a weapon,capacitor,engine,etc. What if on higher level equipment you were able to add in more subcomponents or the subcomponents available gave a more enhanced benefit per experimental point used. One of the subcomponents that doesn't exist atm but should be added is a subcomponent that increased yaw,pitch,roll on engines...with say a negative impact on increasing its mass. One of the subcomponents removed for engines was the improved retrothruster component(not completely sure on name it has been a while since I last saw it) it was removed because it effected acceleration and deceleration which is now built into the chassis of the ship now. If this subcomponent was reintroduced to effect yaw,pitch, roll at a decent amount then this could help alleviate problems with crafted yaw pitch and roll rates being subpar to looted ones.
A more radical approach would be to allow player crafted engines to be slicable by smugglers. This would either improve the stats on the component except mass, or decrease the mass on the component. Or an even more radical idea would be for slicers to be able to make player crafted engines capable of being reverse engineered. If that was done crafters could concentrate their efforts on enhancing one or two parts of a part and then combine it later to make a much better piece of equipment...although quite expensive if done with all player made craftables. This would create a codependancy with another profession that is in need of some help atm. In canon from the movies Han did say he did a lot of special improvements on his ship...this would be one way of making this happen.
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.
Message Edited by styx66 on 11-22-200410:07 PM
I'm a master shipwright and a pilot. And I like the idea of looted items being better than what a shipwright can produce, to a degree. However, right now, some of the looted items are FAR superior to what shipwrights can produce. I think we just need to tweek some of the SW components to get everythign in track.
1. Engines, I think we should combine the Yaw/Pitch/Roll experimentation into one experimentation field. I believe this would put crafted engines in par with looted ones.
2. Capicators, this just seems to be completely broken how much better looted items can be.
3. Boosters also need some help as well.
Other than that, I think the loot system is pretty good. Shipwrights can make very specific weapons. But RE'd ones are going to have better all around characteristics. I think this is a good thing.
In beta I was a master shipwright and one of the things i enjoyed the most about the class was reverse engineering. I'm a space sim junkie been one for years so I spend most of my time in space rather than on the ground..I feel more at home up there. I changed servers when jtl beta ended mainly because of the friendships I developed while testing the game. Since I didn't have the resources or the cash to become a shipwright I focused on becoming a master pilot of the smuggler's alliance first then became a TKM. I'm currently working on becoming a smuggler and doing some of the trees in pistoleer. Mainly because of the eventual smuggler revamp...and the roleplay value I have for being a smuggler and somewhat of a mercenary. But for the most part I'm a pilot. If the smuggling thing doesn't work out I will become a shipwright because that is the only crafting profession that I've actually enjoyed playing. And because of that I do care deeply for what a shipwright does and reverse engineering. Currently I do a lot of killing of npc ships in endor,kessel, deep space, and dathomir. I do this partially because I enjoy fighting in space and also because I enjoy getting loot that is actually worth something. I mainly collect level 8 and level 10 loot to have reverse engineered to put into my ship. I'm very patient in finding loot that not only has good stats but also has a certain look or sound on my ships. That is one of the things that keeps pilots like myself flying in space and a lot of shipwrights in business. Take away or nerf the good loot from killing npcs in space and you basically kill the fun in space.
Currently I have a partnership with a friend of mine that is working on getting master shipwright. I sell him the loot that I don't want and that he can reverse engineer and he'll help me get a firespray without having to spend millions on it...he wants a firespray as well. I'm quite certain you have friends or regular customers that are constantly in space fighting and helping out lower level pilots with their missions like I do. Approach one of them or send them an in game e-mail stating that you would like to purchase unwanted space loot at a reasonable price and at a convenient location and I'm quite certain that some of them would be willing to set up such a partnership thats long term. My only inconvenience atm with my current partnership is that I'm only allowed so many auctions on the market at one time...so what I'm not able to sell to my friend right away I keep in the bank, on my yt-1300, or in my house...until he buys what I offer him and can put more loot in to sell him. Such partnerships encourage interaction with other players and its mutually beneficial for everyone involved.
Also not everyone reads spatial chat in starports or in big cities due to all the spam. Because of this an in game e-mail to regular customers that buy products from you or get a lot of their parts reverse engineered by you would be best. I know myself I only read spatial chat when I'm looking for a doc buff and even then I use the in game word color sentence system to change the color of sentences with buff,master doc or bank tip to red...so I only scroll the spatial chat for the color coding and ignoring the rest. I also have chat boxes active only for those in my group or guild members. So you could not be getting business just standing next to the chassis dealer due to these reasons.
I found this thread after posting in the other one, and concur with Rexan.
The capacitors are just ungodly compared to what I can make, and the engines out strip me also. Beyond that, the system is all right.
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Alan' Kazan Warrant Officer II, Call Sign Alpha Six 11th Naval Fleet, 3rd Space Wing, 90th TIE Fighter Squadron Master Shipwright of Darkforge Starships, 1k South of Bestine, Chilastra at -1227 -4596
Here's a suggestion to make reverse engineering more interesting, while at the same time, resolving the "crafting vs. looting" issue that's been on the forums lately.
Pilot loots an item.
Pilot takes item to shipwright, who Reverse Engineers the item into a subcomponent comprised of stat bonuses.
Shipwright then crafts a new item, using the reverse engineered subcomponent in the crafting process.
Shipwright creates an enhanced part from the subcomponent and his crafting skills combined, much like a weaponsmith would.
This is something I touched on in another thread and I think it's relevant to this discussion. It's a simple question:
Can anyone provide an example of a weapon or piece of armor superior to what a Weapon/Armorsmith can create that drops from an average everyday mob?
I doubt anyone can. All the items that are superior to those that are crafted by another profession drop from non-average mobs (ex. Nightsister Lances), require the player to quest for it (Nym's Slugthrower) or provide a single component/schematic that requires the participation of a Crafter AND the resources required to nomally make the item (Krayt enhanced weapons). Fully functional items superior to crafted ones do not drop off Meatlumps near Coronet City. And it should not be happening here.
Looting does not replace the crafters in the ground game. It integrates with the abilities inherent in the profession (being able to create the wanted item) AND the capabilities of the crafter him/herself (the availibility and quality of the resources they've collected to make the item). What many "pilots", and I use the term very loosely, are pushing for is for looting to replace the crafter completely in JTL. That fully functional items better than what the crafter can create should drop and there be no need to deal with a Shipwright at all.
SOE is revamping the loot system on the ground to provide more interesting loot for the players to find. But they're not going to be tossing fully functional superior VKs into the loot system. Perhaps components to make a superior VK provided you find a good Weaponsmith. The NPCs in JTL are average, everyday mobs. There isn't a DWB themepark in space. Nor are the components in question dropping from non-average NPCs exclusively, like Gunships or Decimators. They're dropping from everything and the effort to get an item is summed up in the tolerance to farming.
My personal ship is 100% looted components and I'm nearly Master Shipwright now. I use to craft components at first but then even the newbees stoped buying them now I make only chassis and paint kits. I make a good amount of cash on them so not complaining however I feel that this is a little unfair for shipwrights. I mean soon we'll run out of customers for chassis and everyone will be buying loot only components.
All I can say is make your money now before the customer pool runs dry.
Believe it or not, I actually sell capacitors. I even tell my customers how much better the looted ones are, but they buy mine anyway. Out of ignorance, or loyalty I cannot determine but my business does just fine with the current status of looted parts. Boosters and capacitors are my only problem now. I'm making everything else with at least 2 key stats better than the standard loot drops. With capacitors I don't even bother and boosters are close to parallel but still not as good as most looted ones.
I would love to see the loots nerfed a little more though. I agree that it just isn't set up properly. Why should a crafter invest a multitude of expensive resources into a part when any pilot could loot a better one for free? You don't see this nonsense in the ground game with weapons or armor as has been stated in this thread. Moreover, the parts we make demand so much resources that its impossible to compete with space loot. The pilots don't mind of course because they have a loophole around our prices. However, they'll be crying with us when all the SW's go out of business because they won't be able to find anyone to make them a new chassis or missiles.
Seeing ive been a crafter since launch, ive done, and played for a long time, armorer, aritsan since launch, DE, architect, since last january, artisan, bio and chef..since jun,, this is 3 toons,, i droped bio for shipwright and it was the biggest mistake as bio is such a great prof,, and after only one month of shipwright i stoped crafting ships all together yea there is a big problem with this. i know many will say go back to bio but aftere using 7 million units i thought i might hold out a while and see if anything was done to fix this.
Re'n is a lame way of crafting, why it was made so much different than all the other ways of crafting IE, krayt guns, seg enhancers, bile enhancers, janta blood, RIS.. ect is beyond me.. Till they fix it im not even gonna bother.. space to me is fairly borring anyway.. soo i dont spend much time at all up there and that being said if im looting stuff that blows my crafted parts away.. then someone that flys 5-8 ours daily i cant imagin the kinda loot he has.. BTW i have the best resources from shifts since launch,, and using top JTL stuff, we have had many incredible shifts of stuff with pirmary sats over 800 soo im getting maxed out exp trees,, and still cant come close..
I'd like to see uber upgrade subcomponents be loot drops. Better than the craftable upgrades that barely make a difference, but that have a noticeable improvement in the component and don't have the drawbacks of the our current upgrades.
Togra Master Shipwright 300, -3600 just north of Coronet Sunrunner
Wow, this is impressive. I have spent at least 16 million on parts and supplies from shipwrights and you want more? Isn't “incredibly wealthy” enough for you?
Is it your intention to sentance people who do not have millions to burn on your products to PVP/PVE mediocrity?
Right now, shipwrights can reverse engineer the loot drops people sell to you (going rate is about 1k per level) into other products you can sell for a profit and sometimes into SW only rewards like the Firespray (sells for about 8 million a copy on my server). On my server, any SW that simply keeps a full stock of missiles in any decent quantity or quality does extremely well.
As a casual player, I hate the weapon/armor improvement loot drops. I don't know armor or weapon smiths that I would trust enough to have specially commissioned weapons made and the rates smiths offer for raw materials is a joke. So, all those nice looted parts end up taking up space in my house. It’s not worth it to me to do anything hunt the stuff so that others can craft it into things I won’t be able to afford.
The loot drops have already been nerfed in quantity. Messing with the quality harms the majority of players while coddling an extremely wealthy minority.
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...
Zigmund...I totally agree with you...all my crafted items are less then what is looted...as a result, I am not selling much of anything that is lootable...and to make it sound bad about me...I use a capaciter that was looted instead of what I can make, cause it is a heck of a lot better then what a shipwright can make
I feel that no one should be able to loot anything above lvl 3, and that is really better then what a mstr SW can make. My point is that no one can loot anything on the ground that out performs better then a mstr...for instance...can you take out an NPC commando in one of the outposts...and loot an awesome flamer, that out does anything a mstr ws can ever make? what about taking out a moister theif...can you loot a BER 20 harvestor? The answer is no, you cannot loot anything that is better then what a mstr can ever make...as you all know...99.99999999999999% of the time, you loot crap, and you end up deleting it cause it just takes up space in your inventory.
the other thing I feel (and others on ahazi server) is that in the village, why can't sw convert their shipwright xp towards the crafting fs trees...I think this might help the crafted items to be closer to the looted items.
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...
Zigmund...I totally agree with you...all my crafted items are less then what is looted...as a result, I am not selling much of anything that is lootable...and to make it sound bad about me...I use a capaciter that was looted instead of what I can make, cause it is a heck of a lot better then what a shipwright can make
I feel that no one should be able to loot anything above lvl 3, and that is really better then what a mstr SW can make. My point is that no one can loot anything on the ground that out performs better then a mstr...for instance...can you take out an NPC commando in one of the outposts...and loot an awesome flamer, that out does anything a mstr ws can ever make? what about taking out a moister theif...can you loot a BER 20 harvestor? The answer is no, you cannot loot anything that is better then what a mstr can ever make...as you all know...99.99999999999999% of the time, you loot crap, and you end up deleting it cause it just takes up space in your inventory.
the other thing I feel (and others on ahazi server) is that in the village, why can't sw convert their shipwright xp towards the crafting fs trees...I think this might help the crafted items to be closer to the looted items.
