So Slicing was nerfed. The Slicers hate it, but everyone else seems fine with it. The latest trend are nerf cries for Biochem. But is it because Biochem is somehow unbalanced? No, but opposed to the other crafts, Biochem does useful stuff.

Let's take a look at the professions that are totally useless at the moment:

- Armormech

No useful recipes on par with raiding or pvp gear.

- Armstech

see above

- Cybertech

see above

- Synthweaving

see above

- Artifice

see above

The only useful items anyone can make are orange itmes that look cool.

Everything else is just meh. A few high level schematics can be obtained from raiding. Why is that? Why is everyone forced to raid? Because all those voiceovers are too expensive outside of raids?

On top of the subpar items to create comes the easy availability to buy everything one can possibly want from all the commendation vendors, daily quests and whatever.

So not only do the crafts not offer relevant items for pursuing a craft, but the game system actively disadvantages people who craft. Why have such a system at all? You might as well turn it off. Nothing relevant comes from it.

There are, however, ways to encourage and fix crafting.

First of all it should be possible for any crafter to obtain gear that is an equivalent to raiding or PvP gear. Why? Well, why not? Where is the difference between grinding raid bosses, grinding Warzones and grinding for materials and schematics? In the end it is all time and knowledge.

So please buff our crafts. A few ways to do so:

- epic quest series with difficult goals to obtain that go on for 20 quests to obtain a powerful schematic

- schematics that use rare materials from other crafts

- schematics with BoP Items

- schematics that need BoP materials from dangerous opponents like bosses

- schematics that need loads of BoP materials from daily crafting quests.

- green schematics that create new green items that can be reengineered in tedious ways into purple items

- schematics with a limited number of items to produce

There are so many ways to fuel the passion of the crafters that we are. But you chose the two dumbest ways:

- raid so you can craft

or

- craft only ****** stuff

I wont even start with nerf cries for vendor (although this seems obvious).

Just give us crafters useful things to do and to achieve! Every social II player can get cooler stuff from Nar Shadaa's canteen. And where does he go to pimp it? To a vendor. This has to change, and it is easy to change, if there isn't anything but disregard for the crafters.

So just buff every craft so dont have to sit there drooling over the cool things Biochem can do. Which is only good because all other's stuff is abysmal.

Thanks for your consideration.

Crafting is definitely not balanced between the different professions. Biochem seems to rule everything at the moment. On top of it, you can make items that are not both BOP and Requires Biochem. In theory, you can pick up Biochem, grind it to 400 to make the Reusable Rakata items then switch over to Cybertech and make the reusable grenades then finally switch over to something else and wait...

If that's the intention, I'm okay with it, makes a good money sink if you ask me... The other crew skills need a buff though in terms of useful items.

PvPing for a few days to get a belt and/or bracers already puts me ahead of the gear I can make with Armortech that's BOP.

If that's the intention, I'm okay with it, makes a good money sink if you ask me... The other crew skills need a buff though in terms of useful items.

 

PvPing for a few days to get a belt and/or bracers already puts me ahead of the gear I can make with Armortech that's BOP.

Well, if someone spends the time and the money to get to Biochem 400 just to have these items, he has definitely earned them.

The problem is, however, that all the other crafts do not have any items that are in the same league as the stuff from raids or pvp. Or just in a league that is comparable to the stuff anyone can buy from vendors.

Biochem is perfectly ok. It's the other crafts that are so severely lacking that looking at Biochem makes it seem strong, when it isn't.

Every other craft is broken. And broken in the sense of "unusable".

I'll just say this: I agree. Buffs and "filling in the holes" should be much more of a priority than nerfs for both posters and BioWare.

So let me get this straight you want the high end gear with

out ever doing operations? What would be the point of

running in an operation if i can sit in fleet and have better

gear then what i can get running in them. Makes since to me.

So let me get this straight you want the high end gear with

out ever doing operations? What would be the point of

running in an operation if i can sit in fleet and have better

gear then what i can get running in them. Makes since to me.

 

I do agree with this. (sorry to bring it up but it's a good comparison) This is really where WoW started to go wrong. They gave non-raiding players the ability to get raid level gear easily.

I also agree with the opening post though, I'm new to SWOTR and was really enjoying crafting, but now after reading a lot about it, I don't know what to do. Is it worth continuing, I don't think I will have the time to raid like I use to all those years ago in WoW.

I say, buff the gear a little but what’s more important is to have something fun and interesting to aim for. Something that may not be as good as raid gear but has something interesting about it that makes you want to make that item.

I do agree with this. (sorry to bring it up but it's a good comparison) This is really where WoW started to go wrong. They gave non-raiding players the ability to get raid level gear easily.

 

I also agree with the opening post though, I'm new to SWOTR and was really enjoying crafting, but now after reading a lot about it, I don't know what to do. Is it worth continuing, I don't think I will have the time to raid like I use to all those years ago in WoW.

 

I say, buff the gear a little but what’s more important is to have something fun and interesting to aim for. Something that may not be as good as raid gear but has something interesting about it that makes you want to make that item.

Don't bring up WoW in this, WoW never had heroic raid level items freely available to players. You had subpar items available if you grinded weeks for them. There's a lot of crap I hated about WoW, but this is not one of them.

A few things they can do that will balance out the crafting skills and make them worthwhile.

1. Guaranteed Augment slot on Crafted gear, with critical crafts granting a second augment
   
2. Critical crafting mods grants improved stats
   
3. Craft Orange grade Shields/Generators/Focus
   

The augments on all crafted gear would create a drive for people to take crafted gear over vendor/mission/drop gear. If mods could critical craft for improved stats, then you'd have a larger market on crafted mods, however in the current state their should already be a high market on crafted mods. And of course, customizable off-hands, if crafting was the only way to obtain customizable versions of these off-hands then players would certainly buy them. And with having the ability to insert mods with the stats of your choice in them you could get stat combinations that would not be possible otherwise.

Also, there is no reason to create a "you have to raid for the best gear" sense in the game. Especially when one of the draws to the rest of the game is customizable gear where you can keep the appearance you want with the stats you need. Raid gear doesn't give this option, if everyone was wearing Raid gear then we'd have the same crap we have in EVERY OTHER MMO IN EXISTENCE. I don't want to be forced to look exactly like the guy standing next to me just to have the best gear. I've had to deal with that in every other game, and I'm sick of it as I'm sure most of you are too.

you are not meant to be crafting. if they wanted crafters to sit, craft and make money they would have said it in the beta.

I remember them saying the crew skills are added to help you get more playtime and ejoys the beautiful 100% voiceover storylines.

So in effect they are shooting for an Oscar award than making gamers happy.

It seems they want all of us to go through all of the classes storylines and hopefully by the time we had done this they had repaid their development costs and made som profit.

long term this game will not last and will definitely not be the "next WoW killer". unless drastic changes are made to the economy. Sad to say people love making money. plain and simple. EvE online is a great game. great economy. but on top of people love to make money they want entertainment and cool graphics and awesome storylines. EvE lacks in the storlylines and wven its cool graphics are seen as a spreadsheet simulator with bit of space combat. we dont need the full economic model from EvE but some of the more positive features should be implemented. I mean this is future tech world and we cant even use our holocrons to do stuff and have to walk to kiosks taht are in other galaxies far far and away across lands filled with beasts and hazzards and all because my inventory is full and i need to sell stuff but it takes an hour to do so.

The $hitty broker house interface deters trading. in age of advanced tech we can use a holocron to access the broker house or the so called 'Galactic' Trade Network. yet in 2012 now on my android phone i can access ebay and buy/sell stuff from anywhere. kinda sad.

the GTN interface leads to reduced trade which stiffles the economy which in turn makes crafers or anyone selling anything run away and just vedor the stuff or just give up.

Slicing was OP because you had the freedom to roam and do what you wanted, experience the storyline AND make money on top of not being forced to find a city walk to a kiosk and access the LOCALISED TRADE NETWORK.

If all other professions had a easy way to offload their gear and not spend endless hours on putting their stuff on the market then the economy may make those mroe profitable since by being easier to access you may chose to buy something RIGHT NOW upgrade your gear and have fun and not 10 minutes later in a special kiosk zone and then walk back to the place you were questing in.

Sure the endgame gear made by crafters may need some tweaking to make it worth while making but if crafters can offload their leveling up gear easily then its a pure money sink.

This is same issue with gathering. if you have exess supply of receources but your target crafters CAN NOT effieiencly get to them because they have to know what category each is into and what sub category they belong to. FOR EACH resource they need in a recipe you can see how ret.arded this is and they just wont make stuff with your resources.

Slicers were nerfed because everyone else has such a horrible time participating in the what little economy we have all because the GTN acessibility is hindered both by its interface and actual kiosk locations not to mention the Localised markets.

in a game with such a ret4rded interface we need at least 7 day duration on orders placed at MINIMUM and maybe teh ability to tweak the price while its active and not have to relist.

Biochem is in the croshairs of the nerf snipers crying "if we can be usefull you better get nerfed too". Why not use that QQ tears and effort to make a better argument FOR your own crafting skill and not just stomp all others just because you cant make money.

No one can, with the way this $hitty GTN is implemented.

So let me get this straight you want the high end gear with

out ever doing operations? What would be the point of

running in an operation if i can sit in fleet and have better

gear then what i can get running in them. Makes since to me.

 

Well, there are actually people who care for other things than gear.

Some people do operations to do operations.

Some people do PvP to kick other's bottoms.

You like gear and raids. Ok. You think the only reason to do operations is to get gear. Well, I pity you.

If you think it is all about gear, then let me tell you something:

The crafter likes to craft gear for other people and make money from it.

So I want to provide the people running in operations with the possibility to profit from my crafts. I want to give them the possibility to use their favorite orange trousers filled with my Cybertech. To give them the possibility to have their favorite item. Not only the usual stuff and look like anyone else.

And, furthermore, never did I say that one should obtain high level crafting schematics and materials by "sitting in the space station". So you are wrong again. You just want to force all others to raid. And this is not the right path. I like to craft. I do not have the time to raid.

But I have time to craft and want to be able to provide top level equipment from my crafts. I am willing to hunt down materials and schematics for weeks. This is something completely different from "sitting in the space station".

But then, you probably didn't read or understand what I wrote in the first place.

All I ever do is go treasure hunting/Archaelogy and pick up either companion gifts or cool armor/weapons I can sell via lockboxes. I barely ever use Artifice just because the stuff you can make it either 5 times worse than what you have or you can never sell it on the Galactic Market.

Artifice makes just a meagre profit if you're willing fill up your inventory with junk and then sell it to a vendor. However the profits you get from it is about equal to killing same lvl mobs and looting the grey item junk and selling them.

I barely ever use Artifice just because the stuff you can make it either 5 times worse than what you have or you can never sell it on the Galactic Market.

That is exactly the problem.

- You can buy gear from everywhere, you get drowned in it, and there is no need for the crafters on the way to toplevel.

- There is no top-level (item lvl 58) gear available. Neither weapons nor armor nor modifications (making orange highlevel gear impossible).

(EDIT: To top it off, you can craft the crafting level 22 items, just to find out you can buy level 23 items in Ilum. And you're like... Uehmm... ridiculed again)

Therefore:

Crafting is useless when leveling, crafting is useless after leveling.

Only exceptions are Biochem, highlevel Spaceshipparts, and gathering skills for money making.

So let me get this straight you want the high end gear with

out ever doing operations? What would be the point of

running in an operation if i can sit in fleet and have better

gear then what i can get running in them. Makes since to me.

 

You need to run ops to get components for the high end stuff with Biochem. I'd say needing to run ops then craft merits results superior to the ops alone. Is that so unreasonable?

You need to run ops to get components for the high end stuff with Biochem. I'd say needing to run ops then craft merits results superior to the ops alone. Is that so unreasonable?

Furthermore, if I get the best items from operations anyway, why bother with the crafting? This is a flawed logic.

In my eyes items come from raiding, pvp or crafting. All three award different characters and different kinds of playing. Raiding rewards teamplay and knowledge, pvp rewards teamplay and hand-eye-coordination, crafting rewards knowledge and dedication.

But not in this game.

Furthermore, if I get the best items from operations anyway, why bother with the crafting? This is a flawed logic.

 

In my eyes items come from raiding, pvp or crafting. All three award different characters and different kinds of playing. Raiding rewards teamplay and knowledge, pvp rewards teamplay and hand-eye-coordination, crafting rewards knowledge and dedication.

 

But not in this game.

This is it -- the one big issue with having crafted mats drop in raids.

Best gear drops in raids, BOP crafting mats for "less than top notch" gear drops in raids. Why it would seem the later is MORE effort. For the raid drop you just need to be there, for the BOP mat you have to be there, have a skill to 400 AND have the formula.

After all the greater effort gets the best reward right?

Gating crafting with raiding is like gating raiding with PvP. IF crafting will always be 3rd best remove any and all raiding requirements.

I also cannot express my disdain for "raid gear" and how it leads to everyone looking alike @ the endgame.

Furthermore, if I get the best items from operations anyway, why bother with the crafting? This is a flawed logic.

 

In my eyes items come from raiding, pvp or crafting. All three award different characters and different kinds of playing. Raiding rewards teamplay and knowledge, pvp rewards teamplay and hand-eye-coordination, crafting rewards knowledge and dedication.

 

But not in this game.

Crafting requires some kind of skill? Are you serious? You should be rewarded for exactly what? I'm curious as to what knowledge is needed to get to 400 in any crew skill. Seriously, what other than time is required to be a master crafter in this game?

I never understand why people want crafting to produce greater items than actually playing the game when most crafting can be done when afk or doing something else while waiting for companions to return. If crafting produces equivalent gear than any competent guild will simple have everything ready for their members when the reach level 50. I'd rather have them kill silly mindless time wasting crafting than the actual game.

I don't get why these crafting fans never see the other side of things, if crafting produces the best gear whats the sense in questing or PvPing? And if people say you should do those things for fun and not the gear, lets see how long people will play if there is nothing to be gained from them.

Gating crafting with raiding is like gating raiding with PvP. IF crafting will always be 3rd best remove any and all raiding requirements.

Or, even better, remove crafting. Since it is utterly useless when you can't even create useful things that can't be had way better with 3 hours of effort.

Crafting requires some kind of skill? Are you serious? You should be rewarded for exactly what? I'm curious as to what knowledge is needed to get to 400 in any crew skill. Seriously, what other than time is required to be a master crafter in this game?

Well, you could introduce a crafting system where you need to find rare materials and read up on how to get them. Just the same way as you read up on killing bosses.

I don't get why these crafting fans never see the other side of things, if crafting produces the best gear whats the sense in questing or PvPing? And if people say you should do those things for fun and not the gear, lets see how long people will play if there is nothing to be gained from them.

Somehow you didn't read the opening post. The point here is that crafting is so broken that it doesn't matter at all. What is the use of the orange items, when I can't use them anymore on level 50 and run around in exactly the same stuff as anybody else? What is the use of crafting if everything else is way better than actually caring for crafting?

If you need to play 10 hours to create an artifact item (because you need to collect the materials), would a PvPer craft it? Instead of PvPing 10 hours for an item of comparable quality, but with PvP stats? This will not happen. Never.

Have I ever proposed that your crew should collect the materials? No. The player character should do that.

And it is amazing how big the fear is that other people get something similar to what one self has.

Wasting time with PvP to get gear is ok. Wasting time with raiding to get gear is ok. But wasting time with crafting isn't ok? On what basis?

You get gear from socializing, you get gear from piloting, you get gear from crafting. But only raid and pvp gear is allowed to be worn to see the content? Because... because... because... I am a raider and I am a pvper and all others suck. That's the kind of logic behind the whole argument.

Crafting requires some kind of skill? Are you serious? You should be rewarded for exactly what? I'm curious as to what knowledge is needed to get to 400 in any crew skill. Seriously, what other than time is required to be a master crafter in this game?

I never understand why people want crafting to produce greater items than actually playing the game when most crafting can be done when afk or doing something else while waiting for companions to return. If crafting produces equivalent gear than any competent guild will simple have everything ready for their members when the reach level 50. I'd rather have them kill silly mindless time wasting crafting than the actual game.

I don't get why these crafting fans never see the other side of things, if crafting produces the best gear whats the sense in questing or PvPing? And if people say you should do those things for fun and not the gear, lets see how long people will play if there is nothing to be gained from them.

The goal is to bring craftng on par with PvP and Raid gear... or at the very least ABOVE VENDOR.

Also, by the same logic, why can't you ever see if from the other perspective?

If Crafting, PvP, and Raid all produced the same quality gear players would have an actual choice as to which route to take rather than feeling forced to get their gear a certain way. Crafting may not require "skill" but it does require time and effort, a lot of it. It DESERVES to be rewarded. We sink millions upon millions of credits into our crafts to get sub-par gear, that is hardly a fair trade off, in-fact we are getting cheated.

You want your raid or pvp gear that you worked oh so hard for to be top notch while the crafters who slave day after day trying to get those top notch schematics end result with something that can't even come remotely close to matching you. Who's the real one asking to be rewarded for doing next to nothing?

Not to mention, those very same crafters have to run your raids over and over again to get the rare BoP materials they need for their top of the line crafted gear. Clearly they are putting a hell of a lot more effort into getting their gear than you are. Their effort should be rewarded.

Not to mention, those very same crafters have to run your raids over and over again to get the rare BoP materials they need for their top of the line crafted gear. Clearly they are putting a hell of a lot more effort into getting their gear than you are. Their effort should be rewarded.

This.

And, you could just give crafters level 58 items that benefit crafting. Or benefit companions. Or farming. Or reduce speedtravel cooldowns. Or whatever.

No raider and no pvp-er would ever wear that.

But for a crafter that would be useful and rewarding.

EDIT: Instead of feeling like a fool cause he bothered in the first place, instead of going slicing, scavenging, archaeology.

I have to say that the crafting system is by far the most disappointing aspect of this game so far.

Other than slicing to continue to make money selling mission schematics and Bio for the consumables there is absolutely ZERO place for crafting in end game.

Things that should have been included at release

- unique items for each crafting profession, whether it's a trinket, weapon, mod, something that provides a direct benefit at 400/lvl50.

- raiding schematics that allow craftable gear that is on par or top of the line only obtainable through raiding

- items that are not replaced by entry level pvp and heroic instances

It seems that crafting in this game is very similar to crafting in a game like Skyrim, it's just something to do but doesn't actually give you anything that you can't get off some random mob out in the non-raid world.

For now I'll continue with nothing but gathering professions.

Angry Rant: Why the hell would you waste developer hours on a crafting system then fail to implement anything that is useful beyond level 49. The first f'ing rule of any mmo is that the majority of content needs to be for level capped players but then to completely **** over the crafting community? seriously?

Angry Rant: Why the hell would you waste developer hours on a crafting system then fail to implement anything that is useful beyond level 49. The first f'ing rule of any mmo is that the majority of content needs to be for level capped players but then to completely **** over the crafting community? seriously?

It is there. It is in the game. The items exist (at least the modifications etc.). (EDIT: They are just not implemented)

Without any info, I'd blame it on Marketing.

I think there is nothing that couldn't be fixed with limited schematics that allow only a limited number of items to be created.

The goal is to bring craftng on par with PvP and Raid gear... or at the very least ABOVE VENDOR.

 

Also, by the same logic, why can't you ever see if from the other perspective?

 

If Crafting, PvP, and Raid all produced the same quality gear players would have an actual choice as to which route to take rather than feeling forced to get their gear a certain way. Crafting may not require "skill" but it does require time and effort, a lot of it. It DESERVES to be rewarded. We sink millions upon millions of credits into our crafts to get sub-par gear, that is hardly a fair trade off, in-fact we are getting cheated.

 

You want your raid or pvp gear that you worked oh so hard for to be top notch while the crafters who slave day after day trying to get those top notch schematics end result with something that can't even come remotely close to matching you. Who's the real one asking to be rewarded for doing next to nothing?

 

Not to mention, those very same crafters have to run your raids over and over again to get the rare BoP materials they need for their top of the line crafted gear. Clearly they are putting a hell of a lot more effort into getting their gear than you are. Their effort should be rewarded.

So again lets reward crafters and everyone in their guild correct? I don't know maybe it's because I come from a large well organized guild. If it can be crafted we will craft it and then everyone in our guild will have one once they hit the requisite level. this destroys the incentive to actually do anything as what it there to gain if some one can make it for you. I hate to break it to some of you people but even if you can craft good stuff , most of us in quality guilds will never need to buy it from you.

But seriously this isn't SWG, if you miss that type of crafting that destroyed any reason to loot anything go back and play it. From the "huge" numbers of people touting that system it must be an overwhelming success. I mean it's got an unbeatable license and awesome crafting and social play in a huge sand box world. They must be opening new servers all the time. Wait... what is that you're telling me, it was a bomb from the start and bled money for years until they they mercifully pulled the plug... (btw I played it from launch to NGE) well then move on to the other AAA MMOs with sandbox play and deep crafting... there must be a huge number based on these forums telling me how we need all those functions. Good luck finding one.