So let's pretend that there was patch focused on crafting. What kinds of QoL improvements would you be interested in seeing?

 

I'll throw out my biggest wishes:

1) The iOS/Android crafting app that was mentioned by a dev as being in the works almost two years ago that would allow for sending companions out on missions while on the go.

2) Some interface design changes. Like a Crew Management window that is a bit longer so you can quickly send out 5 comps without the need to scroll. Possibly allowing companion order to be adjusted in the menu so that you could stick that one companion with the needed bonus up at the top of the list.

3) Some additional droid components with crew skill bonuses since we are still missing a few.

 

What about you all?

Pretty much any actual crafting content would be better than we have seen since the F2P announcement. I have no proof, but it sure feels like the crafting team got hit hard with the layoffs. The 2.0 updates seemed like work done by an intern and most everything comes from the cash shop now.

Rich yield tricopper flux missions.

69 mods made with tier 9 crafting materials and the schematics on the trainers.

A STREAK BREAKER!!!!!!!

 

Seriously, they have it for combat but why not for crafting missions?

 

As things stand people can, and do run HUNDREDS of Rich/Bountiful missions only to get one success for things like Thermal Regulators, Mytags and Beryllius. That. Is. Insane.

 

Come on, 66 mods aren't even T2 anymore! Why don't they fix it already?!

 

Edited October 3, 2013 by Dallayna

*Hybrid augments that offer more variety to stats such as endurance/ main stat or main stat/ secondary stat.

*Similar gear for companions similar to sensor units the ship droids use for +crit +eff.

*Ability to send 6 companions on tasks.

*Image designer interface to re-assign or respec your crews crit/eff with crew skills.

*Stack crew missions on companions similar to crafting orders.

*Assign companions on resource gathering for mats to specific planets, similar to real time strategy.

*Higher percent on RE when performed in a specific designated place.

*Companion gift schematics, reusable gifts, crafted gifts.

 

Crew skills are broken, and if they launch a "crafting patch" they might actually nerf some aspects. Crew skill player base can't possibly compete with the Cartel Market in regards to time, resources and unlimited supply.

*** The ability to stack resource mats to 999 instead of just 99 ***

 

It would free up so much inventory space.. lol

*Hybrid augments that offer more variety to stats such as endurance/ main stat or main stat/ secondary stat.

 

Augments will become like enhancements, way too many possible combinations when only a handful are necessary. Sure, main stat and endurance, and defensive stat and power are not ideal, but they are functional. And you want to talk about "glass cannons?" Imagine what would happen if a DPS could forgo the endurance for power or crit or alacrity. No real need to imagine as every DPS already jumps at that.

 

*Similar gear for companions similar to sensor units the ship droids use for +crit +eff.

*Image designer interface to re-assign or respec your crews crit/eff with crew skills.

Could not disagree more. You might as well just give all companions a flat +crit and +eff similar to HK. And that would be far easier to implement. Yes, one of the pitfalls of leveling a character "blind" (not going to the web to see what companions a class gets and their crew skill bonuses) is choosing crew skills that your companions offer little to no significant benefit. But since it is easy to change crew skills, the only thing holding one back is time and credits invested (i.e. I know that some of my crew skill choices are not optimal - on my biochem sage I only get BC eff bonus from my ship droid - but I also know that if I truly want to optimize all I have to do is put in the time and credits to shift around crew skills).

 

*Ability to send 6 companions on tasks.

 

Unless more class story comes out with additional class story companions, I have to disagree with this as well. Yes with HK and Treek a character can now have eight companions and can only send five on missions. That means that if one is doing solo content there are two "idle" companions. But not everyone has HK and/or Treek (FYI I do have HK on two characters and can easily unlock him on the rest). This puts these players at a disadvantage.

 

Furthermore, only being able to send five companions out is a supply limiting factor. being able to send a sixth increases material and finished goods supply. I'm not saying this is a valid reason not to increase companion mission cap, but it is a factor to consider.

 

*Stack crew missions on companions similar to crafting orders.

 

OK sure, you can queue up all five missions available in the list (of one grade) so that one companion can run them consecutively. But oh wait, that leaves nothing for the other companions to run. That is unless you want to run lower grade missions. But I do not think this is what you intended. Based on my assumption of your intent, what you are asking for is not really feasible as it would require the abandonment of the random and limited nature of the mission list. And again, this would also influence material supply.

 

*Assign companions on resource gathering for mats to specific planets, similar to real time strategy.

 

But is that not what we already do with missions kinda sorta? From an RP perspective, you send a companion to find specific materials. It stands to reason that "behind the scenes" that companion is going off to whatever planet is most likely to have those materials and then returns with them or not.

 

*Higher percent on RE when performed in a specific designated place.

 

You might as well simply increase the RE percentage across the board because who in their right mind would not take full advantage of that system? And again far simpler to implement a general RE chance increase than to code a location/situation specific increase.

 

*Companion gift schematics, reusable gifts, crafted gifts.

 

What's the difference between running a mission to get a companion gift verses, running a mission to get the materials to then craft a companion gift? And reusable gifts won't happen because gifts are a credit sink; whether you run missions to get them or buy them off a vendor, the credits used are out of the system.

 

Crew skills are broken, and if they launch a "crafting patch" they might actually nerf some aspects. Crew skill player base can't possibly compete with the Cartel Market in regards to time, resources and unlimited supply.

 

the CM does not offer EVERYTHING that crew skills can. Even those crew skills that compete most directly with the CM (e.g. armor and weapon crafting), have crafting options that the CM does not offer - AUGMENTS and SLOT KITS front and center . Furthermore, there are plenty of F2P and Premium players out there who are playing that way for the fact that they cannot or are unwilling to pay real money. The problem in that case is GTM pricing; too many post lower level crafted goods beyond the reach of the average F2P/Freemium player with one or two characters.

 

Getting back to the topic at hand, The single biggest QoL change I want to see is a revamp of the crafting window interface. A tree structure with premium/green being the base, branching to blues, which in turn branch to purple. If that is not possible (for whatever reason), I would gladly "settle" for more and better filtering options. Right now all one can do is filter by quality (which helps when you know that you have a specific schematic available and simply do not want to scroll so much) and slot (which is OK for Armormech and Synweaving but not much else). Adding a GTM-esque filtering system (name, type, subtype, quality, stat, level) to the crafting interface would be a huge step.

Edited October 3, 2013 by psandak

What's the difference between running a mission to get a companion gift verses, running a mission to get the materials to then craft a companion gift?

 

Come on, isn't that obvious? If you can craft companion gifts, you can choose what sort of gift you want to craft. If you send a companion to find a gift for you, chances are high you get a type of gift you don't need.

Personally, I think the crafting system is fine how it is, sure, you can make some quality of life improvements, but most of those are just ease of access.

 

Think about it honestly, you have to do nothing to craft, just spend credits while your companions do the various tasks, it requires no effort, there really isn't much you can do in the way of making it easier. The markets on most servers have gone down significantly because of the ease of the crafting system, there's no effort required in this game except clicking to make your companion do it. In some MMO's people don't craft at all, because there's actually effort that needs to be put into crafting, when you make it this easy the market gets flooded with the same stuff.

Come on, isn't that obvious? If you can craft companion gifts, you can choose what sort of gift you want to craft. If you send a companion to find a gift for you, chances are high you get a type of gift you don't need.

 

OK, I'll give you that much. But in all honesty, I would rather run three missions and only get one gift that I need right now, than run missions to gather materials to then craft into one specific gift type. Same kind of time frame. Why? Because those two gifts I do not need right now, will probably be needed eventually.

Something that will let you make few millions a day with enough of time, investment and dedication. End-game crafting and fixing schem-stealing will do.

A STREAK BREAKER!!!!!!!

 

Seriously, they have it for combat but why not for crafting missions?

 

As things stand people can, and do run HUNDREDS of Rich/Bountiful missions only to get one success for things like Thermal Regulators, Mytags and Beryllius. That. Is. Insane.

 

Come on, 66 mods aren't even T2 anymore! Why don't they fix it already?!

 

 

No, sorry, nobody runs hundreds of Rich/Bountiful missions and only gets one crit. Hasn't. Ever. Happened.

i'm still a n00b at this whole lark, but I have come up with ONE major gripe about crafting.

 

it appears that crafted items aren't "best possible kit" and that even after capping out a crafting skill and the relevant mission skills to go with it that better gear is available from drops or from vendors.

 

imho: player crafted gear should be the best possible kit in all cases. They don't need to be huge, whopping amounts better, it may take a critical craft to do it, but they should ALWAYS have the possibility of outgunning anything else that's available.

 

otherwise, short of just saving a few creds levelling up alts, what's the point?

i'm still a n00b at this whole lark, but I have come up with ONE major gripe about crafting.

 

it appears that crafted items aren't "best possible kit" and that even after capping out a crafting skill and the relevant mission skills to go with it that better gear is available from drops or from vendors.

 

imho: player crafted gear should be the best possible kit in all cases. They don't need to be huge, whopping amounts better, it may take a critical craft to do it, but they should ALWAYS have the possibility of outgunning anything else that's available.

 

otherwise, short of just saving a few creds levelling up alts, what's the point?

 

I don't think I've played an mmo where the crafted gear was always the best in slot (BiS). There may have been a piece here or there, but generally BiS gear has always been dropped from the hardest raids.

 

Now where I will agree with you is that with SWTOR, it has been there tradition where crafter gear has been like 1 tier down. Now to understand this you have to first understand that a "tier" in SWTOR is not just one level of gear.

 

So like when the game started, Tier 1 was Tion/Columi/Rakata. Each set got progressively better, but all three sets were considered a tier. Then Tier 2 was Black Hole/Campaign/Dread Guard. And Tier 3 should be Arkanian/Underworld/Kell Dragon.

 

So the thing about crafting is that crafters were always able to craft items just under the "tier". So for instance with the 2.0 Tier 3 we could craft 54's (68's).

 

And of course, we can also craft up to the highest gear in that tier through reverse engineering. So right now we can craft 72's, but not the 75's which are Kell Dragon.

 

So if you follow that trend, then the new gear (78's) that you can get from the new OP and from Ultimate Comms should be the first set of gear in Tier 4. Which means that since Kell Dragon is 75's we should have gotten schematics for something in the 76-77 range. I'm guessing that they did not do this because they want people working the raids in order to gear up enough to do the new OP instead of just buying crafted gear above 72's to go straight into the new raids.

 

Personally I think we have a new expansion headed our way that will include SSSP and a level cap increase to 60 along with a crafting cap increase to 500 for release around April. When that happens, I think that is when we will see the next two sets of gear come out to complete Tier 4, and then we will see the new schems for 76 or 77 level gear arrive with the crafting cap increase.

 

They definitely have a model, it just doesn't work out perfectly every time since they have to hold people back from gearing up to fast for the next patch. And the way this game works they aren't giving out end game schematics so that they force people into raid progression to extend play time. Though I do agree with you in a sense and think this game needs more super tough world bosses that are almost impossible to beat that they could put a few exclusive end game schems on. If they made it limited then they wouldn't have to worry about items flooding the market.

I would like to be able to que gathering missions. Send my companion on five gathering missions in a row the way I can que them to craft five items.

I would like to see this:

 

1. Armorings moved to Armormech, enhancements moved to Synthweaving, and allow all crafters to make augmentation kits or those that don't make augments, make the kits. This would give all classes legitimacy in modification crafting.

 

2. This will generate some QQ but, Raid Tier item modifications should be schematics in Raids and the successful completion of the raids or weekly gives Comms towards the set bonuses. The higher the level the harder the Op. The schematics would be sellable on the GTN. You'd still have to raid for the set bonus, but all the other gear would be craftable.

 

This gives everyone who doesn't have the time for raids to have an opportunity to get the better gear. When ever the new tier comes out, the new tier 4 becomes schematics on a vendor for purchase. This is also when resource requirements would be adjusted as well. The exotic mats required for the schems would drop in Ops and be purchasable via commendations from raiding or FPs or received via reward for completing the weeklies. This also takes the RNG out of the equation when raiding for the set bonus pieces. and this route allows for people to be able to choose what set bonus they want for PvP or PvE with out gimping themselves in some way.

 

3. Increase the maximum amount of companions able to be sent out. We can have up to 8, there is no reason why 6 or 7 can't be used.

 

4. Allow us to optimize all of our companions to meet crafting needs . Like my Commando is Biochem, allow me to change 4X from scavenging/slicing to bioanalysis, diplomacy, or Biochem. OR allow me to swap companions around as a legacy perk on my level 55 characters.

Edited October 7, 2013 by Lowyjowylof

I would like to see this:

 

1. Armorings moved to Armormech, enhancements moved to Synthweaving, and allow all crafters to make augmentation kits or those that don't make augments, make the kits. This would give all classes legitimacy in modification crafting.

 

2. This will generate some QQ but, Raid Tier item modifications should be schematics in Raids and the successful completion of the raids or weekly gives Comms towards the set bonuses. The higher the level the harder the Op. The schematics would be sellable on the GTN. You'd still have to raid for the set bonus, but all the other gear would be craftable.

 

This gives everyone who doesn't have the time for raids to have an opportunity to get the better gear. When ever the new tier comes out, the new tier 4 becomes schematics on a vendor for purchase. This is also when resource requirements would be adjusted as well. The exotic mats required for the schems would drop in Ops and be purchasable via commendations from raiding or FPs or received via reward for completing the weeklies. This also takes the RNG out of the equation when raiding for the set bonus pieces. and this route allows for people to be able to choose what set bonus they want for PvP or PvE with out gimping themselves in some way.

 

3. Increase the maximum amount of companions able to be sent out. We can have up to 8, there is no reason why 6 or 7 can't be used.

 

4. Allow us to optimize all of our companions to meet crafting needs . Like my Commando is Biochem, allow me to change 4X from scavenging/slicing to bioanalysis, diplomacy, or Biochem. OR allow me to swap companions around as a legacy perk on my level 55 characters.

 

You and Spiceshark seem to be on the same page. Check out my responses to Spice's "wishlist":

 

summary:

1) If benovide is right (http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=686451), we as a population are way undervaluing crafted purple armor and weapons. Yes, at the level cap, item modifications dominate, but that does not mean that just below the cap (or even lower) cannot be extremely profitable to the armor and weapon crafting crew skills. Granted I am debating his assertions, but the crux of my argument is looks and planetary comms.

 

3) because the newest companions (HK and Treek) are optional, you put those who are unwilling and/or unable to acquire them at a disadvantage with regard to crew skills. Furthermore, more companions going out means higher supplies, which will almost definitely turn into lower value for all crew skill related items (materials and crafted goods). This is one of those instances where what's great for a single player is not necessarily great for the population as a whole.

 

4) might as well give all companions the same flat +crit/+eff bonus (similar to HK) as this would be FAR easier to implement (alter a few database entries versus integrating thousands of lines of new code).

I'd personally would be a bit wary introducing the ability to queue up 5 gathering missions at the same time. Could ruin market prices that are currently running quite smoothly (server dependant ofcourse) I know most people look at it 'like this, I can make more money!' but forget that virutally everyone can send out companions non-stop without it hindering game-play, possibly leading to prices to drop to the cost it is to get them.

 

I'm also a bit concerned about making the companion bonusses less unique. Currently it makes sense having a certain crewskill on a certain class and make your toons work together for optimal results. It also gives a reason (a tiny bit) to scroll down and sent HK/Treek out. I like how Aric is a diplomat where-as Doc is good with Biochem, Jedi are good synthweavers, etc, it makes sense (to me) like that. Exceptions are: There's still no +5 Artifice critical available. Just introduce another droid-ship part (or maybe introduce more of these in general. Like this people have (possibly) Treek and HK with minor bonusses in everything, a droid with a chosen bonus, leaving 2 companions to make a certain class stand out as a certain crafter. (E.g. Troopers make amazing armourmechs, Smugglers Armstech etc due to the +5 critical.)

 

This is how-ever just my opinion and maybe I'm simply not adventurous enough.

 

Few things I'd also like to see returns/changed how-ever:

- Being able to craft the top-tier raiding gear, but ofcourse: No set-bonus and keep the materials rare. Prices of pre-2.0 crafting materials eventually became an absolute joke but I do think they had the right idea craftingwise.

• It's a moneysink.
  
• It's expensive so it's not an easy shortcut to full gear, more optimization purposes.
  
• Schematics (once fixed) are mainly rewarded to those who deserve them in raids (initiative/adept enhancements, mitigation heavy tanking gear.)
  

- Having a 'requires XXX in crewskill' for everything, rather than just Biochem and Cybertech. Even if it's like before I played (so I might be misinformed) just a max tier belt/bracers.

• Give people a reason to take other crewskills than Biochem (reuseable medpac, adrenals and stims) and PvP'ers Cybertech (grenades) for their mains.

- Some armourmech/synthweaving overhaul. Maybe introduce some orange gear schematics (for example Gree armour in Green, another variation of Czerka armour, BoE end-result, requires legend for schematic but none or lower to equip for marketing reasons.) similar to how dye schematics are rewarded. (I think mixing Artifice, Cybertech, Armourmech and Synthweaving would be a big slam in the face to those who abtained a lot of the schematics.) Or maybe a possibility (at high material cost) to make any skin legacy-bound, either by reversing (BoL end-result after crafting) or like an augment kit (though due to how for other legacy gear you pay a high price/farm reputation the price (to craft) needs to be a lot higher than augment kits, possibly requiring a rare material that would be available to both PvE and PvP'ers.)

• Gives more reasons to have armourmech and synthweaving that just for the augments, bringing some equality to the crewskills.
  
• Possibly one of the few options left without a new mechanic to take for Armourmech/Synthweaving.
  
• More moneysinks (Devs want them.)
  

- Armstech atleast has barrels, but stills feels a bit mediocre. But due to decent (at most) augments and raid-tier barrels, it's ok I guess.

- Add the ability to make augment kits to all crewskills. I like the working together aspect in crafting, but I know people would love this change and I don't see big harm in it.

• I think people should be able the use the materials they can aquire through their crafting-crewskills.
  

- Something around companion gifts, whether it's more like treasure hunting (components to trade) or a trade 3 for 2 of a different kind vendors. I lived by the thought eventually someone will have a use for them. Leading to tons of trophies, courting and some others with a permanent lack of Weapons (HK and loads of class-specific companions) Technology (Treek, some class specific companions) and Cultural artifact (Droid)

• Brings some equality whilst buying your friendship!
  

 

But I don't know anything about game development so these ideas might be absolutely ridicilous.

 

PS: I love this thread OP!

Edited October 7, 2013 by Gloomycakes

My #1 QoL fix would be.. Fix the existing errors ie. implants with the wrong name/level and droid custom gear thats green.

 

#2: standardize.. more stuff should be balanced in mats to items, also the level skips for armoring/mod/enhancements at the vendors needs a better balance to the ones we can craft to help build better niche areas for crafters to fill in the blanks.

 

#3: no Bind on pickup. all crafting should be Legacy or BoE.

I want to see them bring the crafting times WAY down.

 

I want to be able to control my crafting across all my alts, when playing on just one character.

I'd like to be able to delete Green schematics. Just the Greens. At some point in the future, I will RE all Green schematics, and I can use the Prototype and Artifact filters to view schematics. I'm not there, yet. I have to make a list of which Green schematics I have RE'd as much as possible, and which Green schematics I can still RE (especially with earpieces and implants). I'd love to clean out the Green schematics I can no longer use. Have a warning screen when deleting a Green schematic. Have two warning screens. Just allow me to clean up my list of Green schematics, please.

The "fixes" to crafting I would like to see are the following:-

 

1) A legacy cargohold to store all materials gathered by alts, so we can dip into that resource whenever we want (We all trade materials from character to character so why not make it a bit easier)

 

2) Allow us to que up missions like crafting does (it is a pain having to micro manage companions while questing or running a flashpoint.

 

3) Allow a reverse engineering crit bonus (maybe added through legacy levels or unlock) especially considering how long it starts taking to craft 1 item at higher levels to only have 10% chance to RE is stupid (unless you are just lucky)

 

4) Increase the amount of companions you can send to do missions (again maybe a legacy level bonus or unlock)

 

5) Create orange versions of your companions original armour (with the relevant skill i.e. dont make robes with amourmech etc) so we can keep their iconic looks through the game.

 

6) Increase the drop rate of certain scematics through missions (I cant tell how many Tier 2 UT missions I have been on and I have sent companions on and have never received and schematics I want (e.g. Tempered Laminoid gear)

In a perfect world where everything was possible it only took time to make, a class that focused on crafting skills first and combat second. Instead of only 1 crafting crew skill and 2 others, you could take 2 crafting skills and 4 others for a total of 6 crew skills total. There would still be combat options like there are for the current classes, but just to a smaller degree with the focus on crafting items.

 

On a more real level, the ability to learn schematics from gear that is removed from the game, pre-2.0 gear, columni/rakata and the pvp gear that was removed; you could learn those from the training vendors. The missions skills (UWT/INV/DIP/TH) had the chance to drop schems for the cartel market armor/weapons from the packs that are no longer available.

- Legacy cargo hold and crew skill window.

- Option to refresh mission list without phase change/logon-logoff.

- Crafting schematics on reputation vendor for faction related looking gear.

- Removing OPS mats from crafted items 3 levels bellow current BIS (69s are now solo obtainable gear)... recipes on basic vendors.

- 69 Augments (still mk-9 using or mk-10 kits with same mats as mk-9) schematics (relying on same slicing/arm/synt level) on basic vendors or slicing...

- Gear removed from game to be presented as Armormech/Syntweaving trainer/reputation vendor schematics.

- Characters and companions starting gear as level 10, 20, 30, 40 (depend on level on which you obtain companion) orange recipes for Armormech/Syntweaving (at least BoL crafted items).

- BoL consumable container or "armoring"/"barrel"/"hilt" that will allow bound shells moving.

- Any quest reward/drop item (armors and weapons at least) to be able to provide orange schematic when REd (even if we need to RE it as - green, blue, purple, orange).

- Modifications for level 4 at CT/Art/Arm

- Gathering/crafting time reduction from affection to be multiplied some times (to cut in half actual time on 10k affection).

- Orange level 20-55 off hands (generators/shields/knives/skaterguns/pistols/sabers) to equal exiting level 20-55 main hands... any force related offhand stay on Artifice, all tech related moved to Armstech.

- Under 50 relics recipes for BoE items that are not light/dark tied.