A second week of (for the most part) well chosen and well answered questions. I glad some PVP questions were answered for those asking about them last week. We also got some story-related and PVE questions answered.

The crafting/GTN questions were answered in abundance. The information was overall useful and I'm glad to see they are actively trying to improve the economy (it definitely needs some love).

I also really appreciate the SWTOR dev team taking the time to answer more than the promised 10 questions this week

If I had one complaint: it would be that at least for a few weeks, I'd like to see the Q&A focus less on crafting mechanics and more on PVP/PVE mechanics.

Again, overall I really think the quality of the Q&A is improving and I love seeing that.

A simple 'No' would have done, lol. I wish I asked a better question now, he made that 1 sound stupid.

He did make it sound stupid, but that's because he was side-stepping the real issue. Instead of commenting on what players do, he ignores the lack of incentive for players to do something else. If RE'ing an item is supposed to discourage dropping 500 boots on the GTN, then RE'ing is clearly not discouraging this behavior. There needs to be more incentives to enter the economy.

Every time I log in, I look for heavy armor pieces for my 30 Power Tech, but there is a dearth of appropriate gear. The same is true of my 28 Sniper, who apparently doesn't need to use the GTN for armor at all.

Rarer rewards tend to return less often than more common rewards.

-_-

Now that is a Friday afternoon type of response. Hahaha!

nothing for the 4th? No cool in game event. Know your busy fixing those bugs.

Loving it by the way.

Be cool to see something in game for the 4th of mAy.

"May the 4th be with you"

Every time I log in, I look for heavy armor pieces for my 30 Power Tech, but there is a dearth of appropriate gear. The same is true of my 28 Sniper, who apparently doesn't need to use the GTN for armor at all.

A while ago I re-rolled my alts when legacy turned out not to be cross server and now I get gear for myself from quests or cybertech but while I used to buy my companions a new set of gear every few levels, now I can't cos there is just nothing there to buy.

It sounds like there is a legitimate hole in the economy that someone who has a whole bunch of crew skills could be taking advantage of (hint hint). In all seriousness, a key part of selling your wares in any MMO is understanding supply and demand. In most MMOs, the economy flattens out because all the crafters take the 500 pairs of boots that they craft and plop them on the auction house, which drives the supply wildly way above demand, which pushes the prices down to be below the cost of materials and makes it so that selling stuff isn't economically worthwhile - which kind of destroys the 'I'm a successful shop owner' vibe that aspiring crafters are hoping for.

The economy also flattens out when new vendors are added that sell as good or better items than players can make (hint hint.)

Underworld Trading provides several sets of orange armor – you have a chance to get one of these when you have a mission success. Those schematics already cover a substantial portion of the low level appearances we have available now

No, they do NOT! While probably about half of the models are covered with the UT orange schematics (of which zero were added for armormech in 1.2, contrary to prior statements), there is only one texture for each model, when there are quite a few more in the game. Frankly, they are usually some of the worse looking color combinations, too. The only craftable non-tier BH armor that has all the bits and pieces (shoulder pauldrons so the helmets don't look comically huge, etc) is the Diatium Onslaught set, and it's brown, yellow, and white Please give us a lot more recipes, or the ability to choose which texture we want when crafting them. Even if you want to leave the flashpoint reward sets as unique, we should at least have orange schematics for every single green and blue in the game.

One big reason there is no lower level economy is the Planet Commendation system. I understand why it was put in the game at launch (no established crafters) but now all they commendations do is compete with the crafting market. Once people get an orange item, the only thing they need are the mods, making the green and blue gear worthless. Remove or drive up the cost of items on the commendations vendors and you'll see people crafting lower level stuff and placing it on the GTN for sale. Two commendations for a mod/enhancement is rediculous. How can I compete as a crafter with that price? You get 3 commendations from running one heroic and those are repeatable daily and a lot of those also give mods as rewards. It's a double whammy. This makes no sense. It undercuts the crafters. The biggest problem with the market is that it is dominated by BW giving away mods for practically nothing.

FYI

Anyone know what that hint about the purple crystal is referring to? I'm curious for my mid-by Sorc who I really want to have a purple crystal as soon as she can.

Seach the internet, especially the Crew Skills forum and you'll find out all you need to know.

Daniel Erickson (Lead Game Designer): Conscious design decision. The chest piece is by far the hardest to get in each outfit and the primary acquisition driver. It also “owns” the outfit’s color palette. It’s important to remember that “unify to chest style” does not solely mean “match color.” The design is to give good looking outfits that match the design and color layout of the set the chest piece came from—not to pick one color and make a monotone eyesore.

The chest piece of most armor sets is the easiest one to be obtained, and was one of the reasons why people wanted a unify to chest option, because they could not find the other matching parts that were needed.

If the design is to give good looking outfits, then why do some sets of armor "unify" with colors that aren't on the chest piece, and don't match the overall look or theme of the armor (using colors that weren't on the matching pieces from that set to start with)?

While the system as it is now allows for the customization of some sets, they ruin the look of others and options are still very limited. Allow straight color matching (also allowing other pieces to be matched from) or just add a color palette option.

Llloralei: You know all those color crystals that some specs get that they end up not using? How about using them for speeder slots for an underbody glow or a body trim color on your speeder?!

 

Daniel: Sold, it goes on the list!

Sweet.

DarthZaul: Other than the planned Hutt takeover of all GTNs (which will make them all neutral), do you have further plans to improve the economy? Below level 49 it is almost nonexistent. The crafting changes in 1.2 were supposed to improve it but instead they just gave people more incentive to RE everything they make instead of put it on the GTN. I had to make enough characters with different crew skills to create a self-sufficient Legacy economy, making all my own armor, mods, and stims/medpacks because there are none available to buy.

 

Damion Schubert (Principal Lead Systems Designer): It sounds like there is a legitimate hole in the economy that someone who has a whole bunch of crew skills could be taking advantage of (hint hint). In all seriousness, a key part of selling your wares in any MMO is understanding supply and demand. In most MMOs, the economy flattens out because all the crafters take the 500 pairs of boots that they craft and plop them on the auction house, which drives the supply wildly way above demand, which pushes the prices down to be below the cost of materials and makes it so that selling stuff isn't economically worthwhile - which kind of destroys the 'I'm a successful shop owner' vibe that aspiring crafters are hoping for. A huge part of the reverse-engineering feature is that it encourages players to remove these excess goods from the economy, which hopefully will bring supply and demand closer to what they actually should be, and should create more space in the GTN without lots of competition. That being said, we can always do better, and I'm sure this will be something we will tweak further in the future.

If I may, one way to improve the GTN is to make its usage more convenient and so more accessible. As such I'd suggest to make the GTN accessible and browseable from anywhere through the character's datapad and why not mobile applications.

Then to make it even better allow companions to post items to the GTN for the player. Top it making companions retrieving packages from the ship mailbox and bringing them to the player.

The good:

........ The GTN will be very easy to access and more items will end on it vs being sold directly to the vendors

........ You can add higher fees to remotely use the GTN (money sinks) and time sinks (companions away, doing GTN missions)

........ More legacy unlocks (hint)

The bad:

........ Less players gathering around the GTN (supposedly less socialization)

........ More items ends on the GTN (DataBase will grow)

Side note: Browsing GTN isn't really fun when you have to go through pages filled with the exact same items. How about a checkbox to filter items displaying only the cheapest entry per item name entry, like a "select distinct"... ?Then clicking on it would expand all matching items.

Also if you want a more dynamic system you might want to lean towards open auctions vs only buy out system and why not a proxy bid system extending end time when a player bids higher.

IMHO all the above would make TOR AH system even better than Wow default system. Next step would be an improved version of the famous auction house UI Addon.

P.S.: didn't know about moving all the GTN to neutral market good idea. Maybe it would be interesting to brainstorm about adding "imperial fees" on transactions based on faction balance to encourage a bit players to lean towards the other side of the fence (the Republic at this time). Still you'll then have to monitor item migrations through alts between factions (can of worm...)

I'll elaborate a bit further (I haven't been drinking enough to think too much into it. Yet.) on the problems mentioned in the first question regarding the economy.

When the game launched, there were plenty of vendors for every planet that virtually gave away mods, armorings, barrels, enhancements and hilts. There were plenty of quests that gave as rewards mods, armorings, barrels, enhancements and hilts. Those vendors and quests are still there with the mods, armorings, barrels, enhancements and hilts. Why is there a (supposed) surplus of materials? Because no one's making mods, armorings, barrels, enhancements and hilts.

I'll argue there isn't a vast oversupply of materials, just a vast supply of overpriced materials because no one has an incentive to gather. If the market had enough reason to need the materials demand would go up. Since the economy is depressed, prices would GO DOWN as more people supply goods and the ones who repost again and again would have to lower their obscenely priced materials (Rubat Crystals at 1200 each? Really?) to compete.

People generally don't flood the market with 500 boots they made while levelling, at least not in this game. They RE them to get the mats back to level more. In other games they disenchant or whatever to get parts for other tradeskills. Not allowing reverse engineering of orange items just passes the buck to crafters, who by and large aren't making the hideous amounts of profit off augmented items some would think.

Suppose the vendors were removed. What would happen? Some small voice would ask in trade, "LF 2 Level 21 Mods!" and trade would begin. A crafter would take up the banner and see, "Hey, there's no one selling this on the GTN!" My cybertech has all the trainer taught mods/armors RE'd to blue, and most to purple.

Guess where I get my mods... the commendations vendors. Those materials just stay in my inventory, and the ones I might have needed just stay on the GTN.

An economy works or it doesn't. Right now we have an economy hand-held by vendor mothers that isn't going to go anywhere anytime soon. It'll end up in its 30s in a dark room in front of a computer talking about the economy in a video game before you kno... um... I mean it needs to develop on its own.

Vendors need to be removed, or at least their inventory reduced to greens, not blues. What should be the crafter's milieu should be made by crafters, not a weapon given to players at level 8 or 9 as they leave a planet. Not a piece of armor looted from the lowest level flashpoint. Not a best in slot item crafted with 100 armstech, armormech, synthweaver or artificer.

Hiding things throughout the world (Magenta Lightsaber Schematic/materials) artificially inflates cost and demand. How was the demand and price artificially reduced? By adding a vendor. (So to the person who asked where to find a purple color crystal, just wait, when the price goes up a vendor will show up to sell it.)

Stop replying to stupid questions that anybody could ask on the forums and get an answer to. Waste of every persons time.

Basically, you're working on everything mentioned. but we still don't have the core features from 1.2 that we were looking forward to. Nobody asked the tough questions like "Are you going to address the server population concerns" or get rid of the ludicrous instancing on planets when the server population is crap? Free transfers for low pop servers at all?

/sigh

I unsubbed today, prior to reading this, and don't regret it. I wanted to love this game. I played it for about 5 months and just can't do it anymore.

Currently, there are no PvE green Lightsaber crystal schematics that provide +41 stat color crystals.

Think you might want to fix that? I mean considering that: Yoda, Qui-Gon, and Luke all used this iconic color.

Stop replying to stupid questions that anybody could ask on the forums and get an answer to. Waste of every persons time.

 

Basically, you're working on everything mentioned. but we still don't have the core features from 1.2 that we were looking forward to. Nobody asked the tough questions like "Are you going to address the server population concerns" or get rid of the ludicrous instancing on planets when the server population is crap? Free transfers for low pop servers at all?

 

/sigh

Dude, they already answered those questions LAST WEEK!

Arymono: When will character transfers be available for everybody?

 

Dallas Dickinson (Senior Producer, Live Services): We will be rolling out our Character Transfer Service in early summer. First we’ll have some targeted free transfers from/to specific servers, but that will be followed with a broader system where you can either take advantage of free promotional transfers to specific servers or paid transfers to the server of your choice. We know everyone has more questions about character transfer, and we’ll reveal more details closer to the launch date.

 

 

 

DrakeAssaShin: What is being done to address low population servers?

 

Dallas: The Character Transfer Service, as mentioned above, will be offering free transfers from/to specific servers. This should allow the most motivated players to get onto a higher population server.

 

http://www.swtor.com/blog/community-qa-april-27th-2012

How many times do they have to repeat themselves.

I'll elaborate a bit further (I haven't been drinking enough to think too much into it. Yet.) on the problems mentioned in the first question regarding the economy.

 

When the game launched, there were plenty of vendors for every planet that virtually gave away mods, armorings, barrels, enhancements and hilts. There were plenty of quests that gave as rewards mods, armorings, barrels, enhancements and hilts. Those vendors and quests are still there with the mods, armorings, barrels, enhancements and hilts. Why is there a (supposed) surplus of materials? Because no one's making mods, armorings, barrels, enhancements and hilts.

 

I'll argue there isn't a vast oversupply of materials, just a vast supply of overpriced materials because no one has an incentive to gather. If the market had enough reason to need the materials demand would go up. Since the economy is depressed, prices would GO DOWN as more people supply goods and the ones who repost again and again would have to lower their obscenely priced materials (Rubat Crystals at 1200 each? Really?) to compete.

 

People generally don't flood the market with 500 boots they made while levelling, at least not in this game. They RE them to get the mats back to level more. In other games they disenchant or whatever to get parts for other tradeskills. Not allowing reverse engineering of orange items just passes the buck to crafters, who by and large aren't making the hideous amounts of profit off augmented items some would think.

 

Suppose the vendors were removed. What would happen? Some small voice would ask in trade, "LF 2 Level 21 Mods!" and trade would begin. A crafter would take up the banner and see, "Hey, there's no one selling this on the GTN!" My cybertech has all the trainer taught mods/armors RE'd to blue, and most to purple.

 

Guess where I get my mods... the commendations vendors. Those materials just stay in my inventory, and the ones I might have needed just stay on the GTN.

 

An economy works or it doesn't. Right now we have an economy hand-held by vendor mothers that isn't going to go anywhere anytime soon. It'll end up in its 30s in a dark room in front of a computer talking about the economy in a video game before you kno... um... I mean it needs to develop on its own.

 

Vendors need to be removed, or at least their inventory reduced to greens, not blues. What should be the crafter's milieu should be made by crafters, not a weapon given to players at level 8 or 9 as they leave a planet. Not a piece of armor looted from the lowest level flashpoint. Not a best in slot item crafted with 100 armstech, armormech, synthweaver or artificer.

 

Hiding things throughout the world (Magenta Lightsaber Schematic/materials) artificially inflates cost and demand. How was the demand and price artificially reduced? By adding a vendor. (So to the person who asked where to find a purple color crystal, just wait, when the price goes up a vendor will show up to sell it.)

And um, what he said. I leveled 2 characters to 50 before I even looked at the GTN because there was simply NO NEED. You can easily get to 50 without buying anything from another player. Or, honestly, interacting with anybody.

Which is another reason this game feels so hollow / empty / lonely.

Once again, you ignore the torrent of performance concerns with this game. How...pathetic that you can't be bothered to address the most often posted topic on your forums.

Man the hell up and tell us what you're doing to fix your shoddy engine and when we should expect real fixes instead of "we added a very low shader option". "We're working on it" is not an answer.

McGrizzly: Any plans to expand Legacy to be across servers (i.e. tied to your account not the server you are on)?

 

Daniel: This is something the Legacy team would love to do. It’s a huge amount of infrastructure work, however, so it won’t be coming soon.

Given the potential frustration coming from transfers and people feeling locked to their servers, this seems like a great way to avoid headaches and conflict. By won't be coming soon, do you mean flat out impossible to do before you start implementing server transfers and mergers?