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What was the logic behind choosing which crew skills can craft augment kits?


murshawursha

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So I'm all for allowing the addition of augment slots to any item, but I'm not really clear on why Armormech, Armstech, and Synthweaving were chosen as the only crafting skills able to make augment kits. On the surface it seems like the goal was to enhance the viability of crafting skills at endgame (and in fairness, for those three, it does), but in reality, it screws over Artifice, Biochem, and Cybertech.

 

Example: My main is an Artifice. As of now, pre-1.3, if somebody wants a lightsaber with an augment slot, they HAVE to buy it from me (or another Artifice). If somebody wants an implant with an augment slot, or an earpiece with an augment slot, they have to buy it from a Biochemist or a Cybertech, respectively. Augmented force armor comes from a synthweaver, guns from an armstech, and normal armor from an armormech. So every crew skill has control over their respective items when it comes to augment slots.

 

Post-1.3, if somebody wants a lightsaber with an augment slot... They buy a kit from an Armstech, Armormech, or Synthweaver, bypassing my artifice completely and cutting off a huge source of potential revenue. How is this in any way fair? Why did they not simply make it so Artifice makes augment kits usable only on lightsabers/relics, biochem makes kits usable only on implants, cybertech makes kits usable only on earpieces, synthweaving makes kits usable only on force armor, etc? That way, each crafting skill maintains the same role in the market for augmented gear that they do now. Instead, Bioware chose to cut half the crafting skills completely out of the market for augmented gear. Makes zero sense to me.

Edited by murshawursha
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And you're forgetting the part where they could probably agument Relics with them. Rakata Augmented Relics are some of the best in game, and were unique to Artificers. Now everyone will be running around with Augmented Campaign, and the one perk to being Artifice is gone.
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Artificers? You still got crystals and relic to craft.

 

Cybertech's got literally nothing.

 

nothing that they can sell.

 

Still, I'll have to agree, I really don't see the logic behind this augment kit thing, and if I actually have to answer your question, I'd say probably the crew skill that people whine the hardest. I dont see nearly enough people crying over how useless cybertech is, therefore it keeps getting forgotten.

 

I'll bet my last dollar that they're basing this entire patch on player responses, which is not always very accurate.

Edited by hyuplee
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To be fair, I've read some posts recently reporting that BW is tossing around figures like a 50K baseline credit cost to add the aug slot using the table. If that's the ballpark at-cost price for self-service aug'ing up an orange item, then crafters are still going to have a substantial market undercutting the price of DIY aug'ing.

 

Especially if people are happy to (or actually want to) wear lower level aug'ed gear and don't care about or hate the skins on endgame items, crafters may be able to turn out many aug'ed orange items by crit crafting at far lower cost than the item+kit+table fee. That would mean that DIY aug'ing is really only going to apply to items with a huge baseline cost, such that 50K (or whatever it is) becomes only a marginal expense of completing the piece, and nobody could ever afford to get aug'ed items by grinding multiples of them hoping for crits.

 

Also, assuming in the worst case than kits are cheaper than grinding for crits; just roll an alt to make kits for yourself, then aug your own crafted stock, and sell it. It encourages you to roll alts in order to self supply and maintain your cost structure, but that's nothing new; we already had other dependencies like needing slicing to support all our crafting skills with schematics, and all the aug'ing profs with the epic purple mats needed for level 22s.

Edited by Heezdedjim
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And you're forgetting the part where they could probably agument Relics with them. Rakata Augmented Relics are some of the best in game, and were unique to Artificers. Now everyone will be running around with Augmented Campaign, and the one perk to being Artifice is gone.

 

Yeah, I just spent the last week running dailies to get another chance at RE'ing a Campaign Relic. Finally got it, so I can make the BoE ones for anyone, but I'll have to get my Armstech character to make Augment slots for it. That's not fair, considering they're asking an artificer that invested the time to LEARN the Campaign schems to invest even more time (or money) into an augment kit or a character that can make them.

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To be fair, I've read some posts recently reporting that BW is tossing around figures like a 50K baseline credit cost to add the aug slot using the table. If that's the ballpark at-cost price for self-service aug'ing up an orange item, then crafters are still going to have a substantial market undercutting the price of DIY aug'ing.

.

 

The problem I see with that is, as an Artifice, I can make a grand total of four orange lightsabers of each type (single/double bladed), so eight saber skins total. 4 of those 8 cost 3 biometric crystal alloys each. The other four are at best plain, and at worst ugly, skins.

 

So in a sense, yeah, you're correct that for people who don't care a lick about the skin of their saber, I might still be able to make money selling crit-crafted versions of the ones that DON'T require BMAs... For the ones that do, at a cost of 3 BMAs per attempt, it's really never going to be cost-effective to craft and sell those.

 

And I'd predict that most people are just going to take their Battlemaster/War Hero/Columi/Rakata/Campaign saber and add an augment slot to that for 50k + cost of an augment kit, rather than spending 150k+ to strip the mods out of a PvP or raiding saber and insert them into a custom orange saber that is, in all likelihood, uglier than the PvP or raid saber they're removing the mods from in the first place.

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I dont see nearly enough people crying over how useless cybertech is, therefore it keeps getting forgotten.

 

Possibly because cybertechs still have a lock on spaceship parts? Say what you will, but my cybertech is one of my richest characters, almost all due to spaceship part sales.

 

edit:

Once 1.3 comes through, artifice will drop even lower, but next on the bottom will probably be armstech. The new augment system pretty much sucks for all the equipment crafters. They should (have?) made the augment kits:

1. Slot restricted. Armor crafters can create kits for armor slots, biochems for implant slots, cybertech for earpieces, art/arms for weapon slots

2. Quality restricted. Need to RE purples to get purple mats to create a purple augment kit that adds an augment slot that can accept purple augments.

 

As it is, 10 lvl 49 green bracers = augment slot kit. Quite possibly cheaper/faster to churn those out than it is currently to churn out augmented oranges. (Seriously, 40 green grade 6 mats and 20 white grade 6 ones, vs. 70 grade 2 green mats, 30 grade 2 blue mats, and 20 grate 2 white ones?

 

The augment kits is gonna be a nasty blow to crafting. I'd not be singing it's praises in envy.

 

edit2: And heck, the mats for a bracers is 2, 2, and 2. odds are pretty good you're going to get at least 25% of the "non-white" mats back when you do the RE.

Edited by GnatB
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  • 4 weeks later...

Artificers, cybertechs and biochems have a HUGE source of revenue from 61 mods / enhancements / ears. I sold enhancements and mods for like 20kk net. And now they give a chance to other crafters to earn some. I see this a fair choice.

UPD: Aye forgot about the relics the artificers can craft, too. That's a nice offer to people hating dailies.

Edited by Feoktist
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Artificers, cybertechs and biochems have a HUGE source of revenue from 61 mods / enhancements / ears. I sold enhancements and mods for like 20kk net. And now they give a chance to other crafters to earn some. I see this a fair choice.

UPD: Aye forgot about the relics the artificers can craft, too. That's a nice offer to people hating dailies.

 

Only if they are actually group content players. If they are "pure" crafters they are left in the cold. Which (IMO) is extremely bad design. Crafting, PvE, (and PvP) should be relatively independant. While you may not be the best PvE (or PvP) without obtaining something from a crafter, you shouldn't actually have to BE a crafter to be the best. Reverse should be true for crafting. To be the best crafter, you shouldn't HAVE to be doing PvE or PvP. Just be able to obtain from those who are. The high end gear you need to RE to learn the high end crafting stuff is all BoP though (and dropped from high end group PvE content, or bought with commendations that only come from high end group PvE content)... which breaks the paradigm.

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So I'm all for allowing the addition of augment slots to any item, but I'm not really clear on why Armormech, Armstech, and Synthweaving were chosen as the only crafting skills able to make augment kits. On the surface it seems like the goal was to enhance the viability of crafting skills at endgame (and in fairness, for those three, it does), but in reality, it screws over Artifice, Biochem, and Cybertech.

This is why.

For Game Update 1.3, augment kit creation is limited to the classes that can currently make augments. This is necessary for the introduction of the system; it allows us to distribute the components at a steady rate, because each augmentable item you RE results in a portion of the augment slot. The items created by the other crew skills don't fit in with this progression as cleanly - if we decide to allow Artifice or Cybertech to acquire the kits through their commonly created items, under our current systems they would produce kits substantially faster than the other skills. It is safer to open augment kits to a limited set of crew skills.

 

Augment tables are an important part of the plan for crafting and items in general, and we're committed to continually integrating re-evaluating the feature and integrating it into future. Our intent is to provide a system that utilizes crafting to give all gear the same statistical potential while we monitor economic data and gather player feedback to determine what other changes or additions to make. Adding augment kits to additional crew skills is on the list of possibilities, but it is by no means guaranteed. We're working on other updates to how some of the systems work - both internally and externally - that may improve the viability of including augment kits in other skills without creating a substantial imbalance. Along with the economic data and feedback, that will determine whether augment kits expand to other crew skills.

 

Long term, we have economic plans that involve continually refreshing crew skills with new content. Since we are early in those stages, every time we make an update it will make the most recently changed crew skills seem superior. If we included major additions for every crew skill each update at our current pace, it would likely create a result that is incomplete and devalues the system as a whole. As each crew skill gets a wider range of viable items/services, the impact of an individual addition should decrease, and we'll see a smoother cadence between the crew skills.

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Artificers? You still got crystals and relic to craft.

 

Cybertech's got literally nothing.

 

nothing that they can sell.

 

What about mods, armoring and ear pieces? I can never find enough mods/armoring on the GTN. Have you tried making some Blues/Purples and sell em? If not successful, try on your heavily populated server after the transfers... I'm sure they will sell unless you're asking an unreasonable price.

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Crafting, PvE, (and PvP) should be relatively independant.

Relatively is a nice word. This will never be the case, and people realize that and exploit it all the way. Rakata medpacs, stimpacks, adrenals, rings the bell? In 1.2 my character cannot wear augmented boots and gauntlets, because I'm only PvE-ing and crafting. Not-PvP-ing limits my PvE capabilities. So if you're only PvP-ing and crafting, this should limit your capabilities as a crafter. Everything is intertwined, always.

Edited by Feoktist
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Artificers, cybertechs and biochems have a HUGE source of revenue from 61 mods / enhancements / ears. I sold enhancements and mods for like 20kk net. And now they give a chance to other crafters to earn some. I see this a fair choice.

UPD: Aye forgot about the relics the artificers can craft, too. That's a nice offer to people hating dailies.

 

In order to learn those 61 mods/enhancements, you have to either 1. Be satisfied with your gear to the point that Blackhole/Campaign is no longer an upgrade for you or 2. Just want to make money and accept that you won't have end game gear for awhile.

 

Second, it's not even a definite chance that you'll learn the 61 mod/enhancement. Meanwhile, arms/armor/synth are guaranteed to learn their augment kits. They can easily buy the recipes for the augment 22s. And the process of learning the augments don't require expensive Blackhole comms/campaign shells; you can easily get the mats to make the augments that need to be REed.

 

Third, augmentation kits are useful for any player, regardless of class. At least for 61 mods, they are advanced class specific.

 

So let's summarize "end game" crafting:

cybertech/artifice process

 

 

1. Grind blackhole comms and raid in order to get the mods/enhancements, potentially foregoing your own gear for a chance to make the mod/enhance.

2. Pay to rip it out.

3. Reverse engineer it. You have a 20% chance to learn it. If you don't learn it, tough luck. Back to grinding/raiding, which are subject to lockouts.

4. After the recipe is learned, the mats required are not easily attainable. You are limited by the few mats you can get per week. The other option is to require your customers to provide mats, but they are expensive.

 

 

Cybertech/Artifice Limitations

 

1. Mods are limited to one class, thus limiting your market.

2. Enhancements are limited to role (DPS/Healing/Tanking). Some enhancements have cross over appeal (IE: power/surge can be good for both DPS/Healing). Still, the market is somewhat limited.

3. Materials are very rare. Thus, cybertech/artifice can only make a few at any given time and must charge high prices for it. This limits the market to the few that can afford the prices.

4. 61 PvP mods/enhancements cannot be learned. Rakata/columi/tionese mods/enhancements cannot be learned. 61 armorings (from gear) cannot be learned.

5. The mods/enhancements can be attained via other means (customers can simply get the comms/do their own HM Denova raids)

 

 

Arms/armor/synth process

Augments

 

1. Buy or get the recipe via a crafting mission.

2. Make green augments and RE to blue.

3. Repeat step 2 for blue to purple.

 

 

Augmentation Kits

 

1. AFAIK, train the skill from your trainer

2. Make 10 lvl 49+ greens and RE them

3. Make augmentation kit

 

 

Arms/armor/synth Limitations

 

 

1. Augments are limited per advanced class. However, because the process of learning the augments is far more simple and attainable, it's a moot point. An arms/armor/synth can easily learn all the augments available to the profession. A cybertech/artifice will take much longer to get all the 61 recipes.

2. Augments are limited by the Advanced Neural Augmentor drop rate. Still, the neural augmentor is much more readily available than grade 8 mats

 

 

Arms/armor/synth Benefits

 

1. Augments have an enormous market as they are universally desirable. Pretty much any 50 wants augments, regardless of where they are in terms of their FP/Ops experience. While every 50 may not be able to augment all 14 slots in 1.3 right away, the fact that augmentation kits and augments are at a lower price than a 61 mod/enhancement means that more people can (and will) buy them.

2. Augments are not limited to the PvE markets; any serious PvPer will want a full set of augmented gear as well. Cybertechs/Artifice can't even touch this market as we can't make any PvP mods/enhancements.

3. Augments can be attained ONLY through crafting. There is no other way.

 

 

I'm not saying that 61 mods/enhancements should be easy to get...they should be rare. But that doesn't change the fact that Cybertechs/Artifice have almost no "easily attainable" and mass marketable items to sell to the population.

 

I understand that Bioware wanted to limit the amount of available augmentation kits, but the fact is that they chose the wrong professions to make them. I don't see how it's balanced that the same professions that can make the augmentation kits are also the ones that make the very augments that go in them. Bioware could have achieved the goal of limiting available augmentation kits by giving the recipe to the professions unable to make the individual augments (cybertech/artifice/biochem) and ended up with a better balance.

Edited by Rischardo
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1. Grind blackhole comms and raid in order to get the mods/enhancements, potentially foregoing your own gear for a chance to make the mod/enhance.

 

Well sorry but all guys from our ops managed to learn 2+ schematics they tried. You don't realize it's a domino effect: once you learn one schematic you can actually craft it, put in your gear, then try to RE other. And once your kinmates do the same you can barter it. And no, your choice of mods is not limited to your class, obviously you never tried to change any columi pieces for your companion. I gained 2 schematics on my 15 lvl cybertech commando, wow how did I do that?? Hell, one of our kinmates even learned 2 Campaign relic schematics over the MONTHS since the update 1.2. The only problem is lack of access to end-game PvE-content, but you can't blame developers that you only play PvP. And thank you for making this sound over-complicated, now less people will try to learn the schematics, we will have less competition and continue enjoying 100% margins.

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Well sorry but all guys from our ops managed to learn 2+ schematics they tried. You don't realize it's a domino effect: once you learn one schematic you can actually craft it, put in your gear, then try to RE other. And once your kinmates do the same you can barter it. And no, your choice of mods is not limited to your class, obviously you never tried to change any columi pieces for your companion. I gained 2 schematics on my 15 lvl cybertech commando, wow how did I do that?? Hell, one of our kinmates even learned 2 Campaign relic schematics over the MONTHS since the update 1.2. The only problem is lack of access to end-game PvE-content, but you can't blame developers that you only play PvP. And thank you for making this sound over-complicated, now less people will try to learn the schematics, we will have less competition and continue enjoying 100% margins.

 

Wow This wall of text is rife with arrogant, elitist remarks and the typical ignorant assumptions that go along with it... I feel that I shouldn't even dignify it with a response.

 

Nevertheless, I never said that you couldn't profit from 61 mods/enhancements; obviously you can and there is a market for it. But when compared to arms/armor/synth, these items cannot be produced in nearly the same quantities as augment 22s and in 1.3, augment kits. 61 mods/enhancements demand high premiums that are paid out only to a select few crafters.

 

Both of my characters have nearly all the 61 mods/enhancements I can get from BH comms, so despite your blanket assumptions, I am not some PvE noob and will hopefully be making some of these mods myself in the near future (if I happen to be as lucky as your raiders when I RE).

 

I could go on and on and point out every area where you misread/misunderstood me, but I'd probably be wasting my time. The main thing for you to understand is that yes, money can be made from 61 mods/enhancements, but it is not nearly as accessible as augments and thus it is not comparable to the money making ability of augments. The reason you can make money now, despite the smaller market, is because it is difficult to obtain 61 mod schematics and the rarity of the mod/enhancement is what allows you to charge high prices. As more raiders start REing bc they have nothing better to do, kiss your profits good bye.

 

Augments and augment kits, on the other hand, are profitable despite the high supply because of the high demand. Every profession can be profitable; Bioware just made it a lot easier for some than for others.

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This wall of text is...

Lol it is ME who posts walls of texts? And sorry, yes, MMORPG is all about elitism from a certain point of view - top gear, top guilds, top achievements, no?

The main thing for you to understand is that yes, money can be made from 61 mods/enhancements, but it is not nearly as accessible as augments...

Sorry I have to confess. I learned http://www.torhead.com/schematic/gLIwntw/advanced-bastion-enhancement-26, http://www.torhead.com/schematic/fJ0a8l7/advanced-adept-enhancement-26, http://www.torhead.com/schematic/58r2b5z/advanced-aptitude-mod-26 and http://www.torhead.com/schematic/hjlVvUk/advanced-deft-mod-26b because I was so bored I had nothing better to do. And I didn't know I could make money with it, wow, after selling about 40 of them for 1kk each.

 

Of course it's not nearly as accessible, but it's finally made artificers and cybertechs worth their while. And I could go on and on about practical aspects of it, but I don't post walls of text usually.

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Relatively is a nice word. This will never be the case, and people realize that and exploit it all the way. Rakata medpacs, stimpacks, adrenals, rings the bell? In 1.2 my character cannot wear augmented boots and gauntlets, because I'm only PvE-ing and crafting. Not-PvP-ing limits my PvE capabilities. So if you're only PvP-ing and crafting, this should limit your capabilities as a crafter. Everything is intertwined, always.

 

Well, they should be economically intertwined, yes. But that's pretty much it. Bioware is (slowly) removing the rakata advantages. The boots/gauntlet issue is already being rectified as well. Just because they've made mistakes doesn't mean those mistakes shouldn't be fixed.

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