1) The problem wasn't the amount of credits you can earn, it's that you could be a level 10-20 earning them, creating an artificial disparity where low level players were earning max level profits Based on the reported repair and skill costs at level 50, netting 200-300k in a week is peanuts and probably won't keep you afloat. As it stands post nerf slicing is likely not viable for max level characters in order to prevent the level 10s from being "rich".

2) There are very few people who used nothing but slicing to get to the often referenced 500k+ credits at level 20. I was on vacation without a computer that couldn't actually play (ran about 1.5fps), so I spent my off time doing nothing but slicing missions with 2 companions. I netted just over 280k, plus some missions that I have yet to sell...I maybe would top 500, but I doubt it as my server has a glut of missions and (do to point 4) I now plan to keep them for alts.

3) Slicing mission profits cannot be directly compared to Bioanalysis/Diplomacy/etc... The other professions each have a point, gathering mats to sell or use in crafting. The slicers aren't giving net profit after the expense of leveling a crafting profession, so you can't compare the two. The only way to truly compare would be to take a slicing mission's profit and go buy comparable level goods on the GTN or to gather and sell. In my guild we had a member doing just that with UWT and he earned more credits then I did by a pretty large margin.

4) If a lot of people drop slicing or stop running missions that is bad for everyone - the market on the rare missions will dry up and the lvl 50 augments will be unavailable. Why are the crafters rejoicing at the loss of an inexpensive stream of blue/purple missions?

I agree with you apart from one thing there was a problem it was this the returns where completely nonsensical.

According to the data mined the problem was with 25-40 Bountiful & most Rich Mission these returned far to many Credits averaging 100+ creds per minute (ok the top end missions should return a good amount), the rest all returned about 20 creds/min, or in the case of lvl6 boxes its about 4 creds/min this is clearly wrong it should be 20 cred/min at lest.

If Bioware used common sense and had the different lockbox levels and yields give sensible yield returns their been no problems.

IE lvl 6 should give higher return in terms of per minute spent than lvl 5 lockboxes etc (as for Yeild that could just of been the time that effected that or a small bonus in terms of return or crit chance or something). Or all missions should give the same return in terms of creds per min (20 creds/min) with the difference being the bonus recipes and mission items.

It was the only crafting mission that wasn't a money sink. That wasn't balanced.

Well, its a gathering, but yes..you are supposed to lose money running gathering missions as opposed to picking up mats/boxes in the open world.

You should lose money running slicing missions. You are paying for the chance to get mission discoveries and valuable augments.

Well, its a gathering, but yes..you are supposed to lose money running gathering missions as opposed to picking up mats/boxes in the open world.

 

You should lose money running slicing missions. You are paying for the chance to get mission discoveries and valuable augments.

You lose money when the mission fails, not when it succeeds. Right now, slicers are losing money on successful missions because of these nerfs. We lose large amounts on the "wealthy" missions.

And as for augments, they're not really valuable unless BW bumps up the vendor trash value seeing people are reporting that they are not selling.

Well, its a gathering, but yes..you are supposed to lose money running gathering missions as opposed to picking up mats/boxes in the open world.

 

You should lose money running slicing missions. You are paying for the chance to get mission discoveries and valuable augments.

Actually, if this were true then augment missions and lockbox missions wouldn't be separate. They are. They were working as intended, but bioware didn't realize people were going to whine about it as much as they did.

And sending out your crew for a lockbox mission knowing it would come back with less money is just stupid. It would be like investing in a company knowing for a fact that it was going to go bankrupt or shut down soon. What if you knew that every time you sent your crew out on a mission you would come back with nothing? You wouldn't call that broken?

Once again... it wasn't broken before, BW just didn't anticipate the whiny backlash from non-slicers.

Well, its a gathering, but yes..you are supposed to lose money running gathering missions as opposed to picking up mats/boxes in the open world.

 

You should lose money running slicing missions. You are paying for the chance to get mission discoveries and valuable augments.

Did you just put "Valuable" in the same sentence with Augment? I take it you don't Slice.

Losing money on missions is not a problem for slicing as long as they re-work the rewards to be something other than money. Augments are NOT useful. You would think they would be, but they do not sell and they are massively random. You will end up with an inventory of 30 augments and lose your *** in fees trying to sell any of them on the GTN.

So basically, you are running missions for items to sell to a vendor...not worth doing.

That leaves you lockboxes, if they are to be a net loss on the mission, then the rate at which schematics and missions occur needs to be dramatically increased otherwise it would be like running a Bio or Scavenging mission where you were guaranteed to come back empty handed 9 times out of 10.

Slicing was and still is less profitable (pre-nerf and definitely post-nerf) than doing Underworld Trade missions and selling the proceeds.

Even Scavenging, combined with armor crafting is better. You can take two Desh or Silica (which you can have over 100 of in less than an hour easily with all the nodes) and make a base level heavy belt for 2 Desh (or silica) and sell it for 50 credits to a vendor.

It's boring as all get out, but you can crank out about 33 credits / minute with one companion crafting and you just running around gathering while queuing them up.

Even now, an armor crafter can buy Desh and Silica on the GTN for between 10 to 15 credits each (some will be higher, but i've found plenty in that range) and you can turn a profit on it while getting basically free skill ups to about 50 or 60 with it.

If anyone ever uses augments, they need to just let them be bought with commendations like everything else (they may already be, don't know). Because no one except a very rich person with nothing better to do is going to do an augment slicing mission.

Add to that the drop in slicers with this nerf and they really should consider just removing slicing and replacing it with something they don't feel they have to cripple. It would cause less uproar.

Actually, if this were true then augment missions and lockbox missions wouldn't be separate. They are. They were working as intended, but bioware didn't realize people were going to whine about it as much as they did.

 

And sending out your crew for a lockbox mission knowing it would come back with less money is just stupid. It would be like investing in a company knowing for a fact that it was going to go bankrupt or shut down soon. What if you knew that every time you sent your crew out on a mission you would come back with nothing? You wouldn't call that broken?

 

Once again... it wasn't broken before, BW just didn't anticipate the whiny backlash from non-slicers.

No, thats exactly what you do when you run other gathering missions. You know you are wasting money because you can gather twice as many materials in 60 seconds in the open world. You run slicing lockbox missions for the chance to crit. As far as augment missions go, if you don't want them, dont run the mission. Let me show you an example.

A bioanalysis mission costs 800 credits to run, returning 600 credits worth of mats.

A slicing mission costs 800 credits to run, returning 600 credits.

You can then buy 600 credits worth of mats if you like. So why run either? You shouldn't, unless you are too lazy to farm nodes in the open world. But with slicing you have the chance to get a mission discovery..and with bio you just get more mats. You are actually better off with slicing, because those 600 credits-worth of mats you got, maybe actually be worth 300 or less if the market is saturated. With slicing at least your credits will retain its value..obviously.

In any MMO where players buy items that increase their character worth, a license to print game currency in mass quantities (and play dumb all you want .. you KNOW it was easy, mass quantities) is gamebreaking and never, EVER, intended.

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I think part of the problem with crafting is that you can literally buy equipment that is better for your class from a vendor. That is beyond ridiculous. Your crafts should be able to make Best In Slot or close to it for whatever level they are. As it stands now, thats not the case. I mean Cybertech cant make Guardian mods. Arguably the best Mods for a Jugg Tank. We have to buy them from a vendor???

The crafting system is flawed. Slicing isn't really the problem, its just the red headed step child of the problem. You should be doing slicing for the missions and augments, not for selling the boxes for easy money. But they didn't build that system the right way.

1)

 

4) If a lot of people drop slicing or stop running missions that is bad for everyone - the market on the rare missions will dry up and the lvl 50 augments will be unavailable. Why are the crafters rejoicing at the loss of an inexpensive stream of blue/purple missions?

This is basically an out and out lie or just plain ignorant.

If the current money grubbers drop slicing because they can't manufacture credits at will anymore, players like me will roll slicers and fill the void.

You aren't going to lean on a 'there will be a vacuum if we all leave' -crutch to try to get your printing press back.

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It was the only crafting mission that wasn't a money sink. That wasn't balanced.

That's not true. The fact that slicing earns you credits does not make it unbalanced.

It's just a different type of resource you get from gathering.

Slicing pre-nerf was unbalanced. Slicing post-nerf might be better balanced or even at a disadvantage i'm not sure yet. But the crew missions still get me more credits then I put into it so it's not a money sink

Look at it this way.

If you want to build a house you need to invest in materials, equipment and an eduqation on how to build houses. This does not pay off until you sell the house (or live in it) so until that point it might seem like a money sink.

Slicing is more like investing. You entrust the money to someone else with the intention that you end up with more money.

Slicing is more like investing. You entrust the money to someone else with the intention that you end up with more money.

As it stands right now, it's investing in something that you know is going to fail. Last night I sent my companions out on 3 epic mission drops. These are classified as "Wealthy" returns for Lockboxes and Augments. The missions cost 3115 credits each. I lost money on each of these "successful" missions. One lost me 1k credits and to add insult to injury, gave me a green quality augment.

This is basically an out and out lie or just plain ignorant.

 

If the current money grubbers drop slicing because they can't manufacture credits at will anymore, players like me will roll slicers and fill the void.

 

You aren't going to lean on a 'there will be a vacuum if we all leave' -crutch to try to get your printing press back.

 

 

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The "printing press" has always been, and still is, Underworld Trading. Scavenging and Bioanalysis also beat out slicing in profit.

What slicing had over them was that it was easier as you didn't have the GTN involved. But running missions for UT and selling every proceed compared to running slicing missions, it is undeniable that UT is significantly more profitable, pre-nerf and post-nerf.

If you don't believe it, go to a new server, make an new character, get your companion and start running UT missions with the credits you've made in order to nab the Terenthium bars. Sell if for 200 a bar, do not quest or level...just run UT missions near the GTN and sell the proceeds. Sell all the wonderful crits you get on UT as well for even more money.

Do this for a day of playing and then create a new character and do the exact same with slicing missions.

Compare the two and you will not be able to say that slicing is the printing press anymore, well, at least not with a straight face.

People are stupid and can't see down the road. Augments aren't valuable right now because the gear with augment slots is pretty scarce at the moment AND most people are still leveling and replacing gear too fast to care about such slight upgrades.

But when everyone is 50 and they're trying to maximize their stats, you can bet everyone will be looking for to put a top-level augment in every slot that will hold one.

I've said it a hundred times before and I'll say it again: people complaining about trades kills being broken/worthless and the economy needing an overhaul just need to sit back, shut up, and enjoy the leveling process/story. All of your "problems" will work themselves out as the game grows out of the infancy stage it is currently in.

I am not sure, but why should anybody make money from running missions?? I am a archaeology, underworld trading, & synthweaver. I am definitely losing money from gathering missions in both. I always thought the mechanic in ANY MMO GAME to attain mats, you must spend time (to gather manually) or money (on the AH to buy mats). Either way, Pre-nerf Slicing allowed you to not spend the time (manually) by running missions and still make a profit. So with 0 time invested (you have given up nothing), and the net returns is positive.

From a straight mechanic perspective, in MMOs across the board, that concept is broken. Something that gives you monetary profit where you do not have to invest time is broken. Just push a button and accept mission. Thats it!

I actually thought BioWare's point of missions was for those ppl who are willing to pay money instead of time (the investment) and get the return of leveling up their gathering skill (as opposed to running around and mapping nodes like in other MMOs). Isn't the most comparable concept, the rich elitist in an MMO who purchased currency from a 3rd party, bought of all the mats on an AH, and then power-leveled a craft?

This is why I am totally confused by all the slicers who claim the nerf was because non-slicers "QQ-ed" ... They are blind to understand a basic concept in every known MMO to gamers: something for nothing is broken. Profit from pushing a button while you run a flashpoint is broken. It should not be. No gathering skill should be like that. And from what I have seen from my own gathering skills, if I were to run missions to attain all my mats I would actually be financially at a net loss (which is NORMAL). However, I would be power-leveled to 400 without any help from a high level player which is technically a great trade-off.

Maybe I am just seeing this to simplistically.

The way all of the non-slicers are promoting how great it is to be able to get back 80-105% of the credits spent on a credit slicing mission, I think they should drop their skills and switch to slicing!

Every person who tells me I should be lucky to be able to slice for a lvl 50 augment should buy a lvl 50 augment off me for what, at least double the cost of my mission to get that augment? And it should be sight unseen, you give me the credits first, then I'll give you the augment, same as my missions do for me.

I'm not wanting lockboxes to be made profitable again, obviously the non-slicers will all QQ if that were to happen and I don't want anyone sad.

But I would be happy if Bioware

1) added augment slots to crafted orange gear (even if only on a crit or whatever, same as non-orange gear). This change alone would suddenly make my augment missions possibly worth it. It would also make crafted orange armor be very valuable to me, helping the non-slicers not QQ over my OP slicing ability to get augments. And isn't that what we want for everyone? All of the crafting missions to be useful?

2) get rid of credit lockboxes. I know I know, I should be thanksful to spend 1000 credits and get 800 credits on my successful mission. And when I spend 1700 credits and get 1900, I should be jumping up and down for making 200 credits in 20 minutes. But I'm a whiner that way, QQ is addicting. When I'm doing a 4-man flashpoint and send my companions off to salvage, I'm not losing credits and I'm not trying to skill up, I'm getting substantially more resources than I can get on the flashpoint so I can craft before I log out. I would spend 60 seconds to get more resources than my missions salvaging in the real world, but no one will tell me where the magical place is with these piles of resources. In my world I salvage while doing missions probably once every 10 minutes, not 1/companion like I do with missions. Until someone shares, I have to do salvage missions and apparently not lose money but instead gain valuable resources I use to craft with (I know, I must be doing something wrong, or maybe salvaging is OP and needs to be nerfed because I actually use my resources to craft instead of trying to sell them, I better stock up now, please don't QQ about it until I have more time to stock up).

3) After removing the credit credit lockboxes, add new lockboxes that return random items or green schemas like ppl say (with the crits still returning what they do now). Or maybe control pads to summon a 60 second droid or something. Something related to hacking computers that I could use (which negates value) or can possibly sell for who knows how much on the GTN. Basically, the other missions give things that its up to the player to be clever and turn into more valuable credits than the cost of the mission, credit lockboxes guarantees you can't be clever and "will" lose (or at least for those of us who are unlucky, I gave up after 12 missions of rich and abundant successes and several hours later returning me -300 credits, I've seen some non-slicers saying how much money they keep making now with slicing after the nerf)

My wife has tons of money, entirely from having 3 salvaging skills and selling on the GTN. Shes skilled, she takes things off the GTN when people flood it with cheap mats, and puts things back on when things become profitable. Every day I watch my credit balance get lower, as I buy expensive skills to level up, while she has ever more money (talking hundreds of thousands at this point). When they sliced nerfing I wondered if I'd be able to buy the next speeder upgrade, but she continues to inflate her money (and yes she does these supposedly money losing missions for the other 3 salvaging skills). I won't share which salvaging skills she has, I wouldn't want more QQ on the forums to cause the devs to reduce the number of mats she gets or something.

People are stupid and can't see down the road.

Calling people stupid means you cannot really counter the argument and therefore you have waved the white flag. I gracefully accept your surrender sir.

A bioanalysis mission costs 800 credits to run, returning 600 credits worth of mats.

A slicing mission costs 800 credits to run, returning 600 credits.

 

You can then buy 600 credits worth of mats if you like. So why run either? You shouldn't, unless you are too lazy to farm nodes in the open world. But with slicing you have the chance to get a mission discovery..and with bio you just get more mats. You are actually better off with slicing, because those 600 credits-worth of mats you got, maybe actually be worth 300 or less if the market is saturated. With slicing at least your credits will retain its value..obviously.

Uh...if the market is saturated and I need mats for Bio...then why wouldn't I just take 300 credits and buy them off the market? Makes more sense than spending 800 credits knowing the average return is 600 credits worth of mats that are really worth 300 credits. In the end...I have what I need...mats.

Your example of slicing is that I'm spending 800 credits for I can lose 200 credits and then buy something I need. Why not just take my 800 credits and buy what I need?

The comparision of slicing to any other gathering mission doesn't make sense. With other gathering missions, you get something in return that is useable. In slicing...you're trying to make more credits to have more purchasing power than you had before. I can't craft anything out of nothing...so if I need more mats, I do missions for them. If I don't care about crafting anything...I need money...not mats.

I am not sure, but why should anybody make money from running missions?? ....

click button - pay credits - receive materials.

click button - pay credits - craft item.

click button - sell item - gain credits.

Just more clicks to achieve the same thing...

Uh...if the market is saturated and I need mats for Bio...then why wouldn't I just take 300 credits and buy them off the market? Makes more sense than spending 800 credits knowing the average return is 600 credits worth of mats that are really worth 300 credits. In the end...I have what I need...mats.

 

Your example of slicing is that I'm spending 800 credits for I can lose 200 credits and then buy something I need. Why not just take my 800 credits and buy what I need?

 

The comparision of slicing to any other gathering mission doesn't make sense. With other gathering missions, you get something in return that is useable. In slicing...you're trying to make more credits to have more purchasing power than you had before. I can't craft anything out of nothing...so if I need more mats, I do missions for them. If I don't care about crafting anything...I need money...not mats.

This need to be quoted repeatedly over and over and over again, on every slicing thread where they talk about other gathing skill missions returning lower credit mats, at least you get mats, and aren't gambling hoping that you get a mission, schematic to make the venture useful.

If I don't care about crafting anything...I need money...not mats.

I am as perturbed by this comment as the poster who made a post saying "DOOD WHICH PROFESSION MAKES THE MOST MONEY BECAUSE I WANT TO BE BAAAAWWWWS"

If you need money, then grind mobs and instances like in other MMOs you played? I will admit I am applying old set concepts from other MMOs ... but crafting DOES NOT make you rich at the onset. Even GATHERING does not! Gathering only makes you money if you run around and gather yourself. This is no different in SWTOR. If you push the mission button, you are accepting paying money TO LEVEL YOUR SKILL or ATTAIN MATS which you use to craft.

If you want to make money slicing run around the world opening nodes. Just because BioWare added missions that are different than well known MMOs (like WoW) doesn't mean the basic concepts and mechanics are any different. They made it easier for you to level a profession, not to make money.

This need to be quoted repeatedly over and over and over again, on every slicing thread where they talk about other gathing skill missions returning lower credit mats, at least you get mats, and aren't gambling hoping that you get a mission, schematic to make the venture useful.

That and the fact that no other gathering profession has successful missions that actually results in a net loss of materials either. I don't send a companion out to get me color crystals, have them succeed, and then get 2 taken out of my inventory.

If you want to make money slicing run around the world opening nodes.

Apparently you have not been keeping up with current events..... NODES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE GAME ON SOME PLANETS