1. Since the release of patch 1.2, Legacy unlocks have become immensely expensive. These were supposed to be things that you just got for fun after playing the game for a certain amount of legacy levels. Instead, these things would take weeks if not months of grinding to unlock just the somewhat interesting ones, then more weeks / months for grinding credits. After buying some of these unlocks, a person is relatively broke.

2. Transfering armoring, mods, enhancements and augments into crit crafted gear costs about 120k-160k credits + 300k give or take to purchase or make the crit crafted 1 piece of armor. Multiply that by 5 pieces of armor, offspecs, pvp/pve specs, and you get a huge money sink. For those of you bad at math 160k+300k = 460k per crit crafted item. 460k x 5 crit crafted items = 2.3 Million credits. 2.3 Mill x 3 sets of gear (mainspec, offspec, pvp) = 6.9 million credits for 3 sets of crit crafted gear, plus any mistakes you make or find a "better looking" armor set you want to change to.

3. Rakghoul Event: This event was amazing and I loved it, but you further killed artifice with the free +41 crystals, this should have been something like +37 crystals to keep the artifice profession viable. Having the crystals for a limited time provides a rare item that can be sold at a later time for a high amount, the fact still remains that nobody has big credits to spend for big items, even with about 4 months time from now, things should remain similar.

4. Since Patch 1.2 Biochem/Profession changes: Red Goo went from 400k per stack of 99 to barely 50-100k and nobody is buying. Other biochem grade 6 mats went 50-100k also and nobody is buying, even for dirt cheap prices. The same has been applied to other professions. Columi implants from alien data cubes went from 200k each to not even 25k each. The Highest level implants that biochem could make with an augment slot went from 150k to not even 25k, and nobody is buying any. Diplomacy used to sell a stack of 99 radioactive paste (grade 6 epic) for 1.3 Million credits. Now not one person will buy it for even 500k, even though radioactive paste is still really rare to get.

5. The only crew skill that remains remotely viable for making credits are the crit crafted gear w/augment slot crafting professions, which sell 200k-500k per crit crafted item.

6. My only current way to make credits is selling companion gifts. I have an entire bank tab full of grade 6 bioanalysis materials and grade 6 diplomacy that I would rather vendor than attempt to sell on the GTN wasting space for the 50 auction limit.

7. Conclusion: Patch 1.2 changes & new Tier set of gear should have included another tier of crafting materials and crafted items for ALL PROFESSIONS for endgame. You effectively forced everyone now to go armormech / synth in order to make credits without farming boring dailys and you have effectively KILLED the market for all other professions forcing prices so low that it is not worth sending companions out on missions anymore. It has come to the point where it is more efficient to vendor a stack of mats then try to sell them and any crafted items are outdated and not worth spending money to buy them.

Update: The RE chance of a campaign item is slim, but I feel that people will only try doing so a few months down the line, and even if they get a successful RE today, that will not fix the rest of the market, only inflate their bank.

*What is your servers experience with the crew skill changes?

You make some very good points. I find it harder to spend credits when each week things get nerfed, Have seven different characters, slowly leveling them. Right now because of the nerf to corso, my scoundrel is sidelined, not buying stuff for it. Others are like meh why even play them, they are fun this week but what about next week.

BW really needs to fix bugs. I know that I quit buying earpieces and implants for my companions due to the bug.

The price of changing mods from one piece of gear to another is way to high, as it is now I hate the way my character looks, I would like to change in to some "simpler" armor. Not going to because of the cost. And really don't like playing a fugly character. Kinda expected to see WOW cartoon gear in a WOW clone game.

Having more companion gift missions than actual real missions, means that I have to log out and back in two, three times or more to get a decent mission. I think the only reason BW made companion gifts stackable was so people would have room to store more of them and not actually realize how many they had.

Right now I am making a small profit on synthweaving, but I don't expect it to last long as more people get the schematic and less demand for them.

Over all BW dropped the ball. My server is dead............................................

Imo, the problems with weak economies across servers stems from 3 things:

1. Not enough rare schematics. Far too many people have access to the same schematics. We need to see a serverly sharp drop in the amount of schematics that drop both from crew missions and ops, and more (or perhaps less? ) rare random world drops. Might be a little late at this point, but moving forward many of these need to be harder to obtain. If everyone continues to have them due to ease to obtain, then prices will continue to hover just over vendor prices as people undercut each other to the detriment of all.

2. "Why should I buy X item, when I can get it from missions/vendors?" As an example, being able to obtain things such as armor/weapon mods or gear for planet coms, or from heroic missions, hurts everything pre-OPs. It is a great convenience.. but at the cost of hosing crafters. I can think of a couple of the heroic daily missions giving away BoE mods, which at this point tend to find thier way on to the GTN, being sold for less than the mats cost for the respective crew skill to make them, and took all of 5 minutes to run the mission... I mean really? At the very least, things like this need to be BoP. (Rakghoul event is a great example: Pets were BoP (perfect!) but crystals were BoE!? Sorry artificers.)

3. Chance to learn on RE needs to be lower. I know this one will ruffle the feathers of the truely casual player, but this goes back to everyone having the same schematics... and no one making creds off of them.

This is pretty much how Im seeing crafting go south day by day..

As a side note, so far as people not having money, nothing personal.. but thats just a touch of laziness. Each day you run a full set of dailies (Black Hole, Belsavis, Ilum, and the top 2 space missions) will easily net you over 300k after vendoring drops up to and including blues (assuming you dont need that gear, of course). Even if you only have time to run 1 set a week, or even 1 planet a day, you should still be making money unless your throwing it away.. especially after Bio lowered the repair costs radically. Things like re-mods might be a bit costly up front, but once you get your gear as you like it, your not gonna be re-modding often after that. 1 piece maybe, with some spot modding assuming you want to keep your set bonus.. so just do your dailies!

I've noticed the dead markets as well.

I can't speak for everyone of course, but I know for my guild we have started being VERY aware of keeping all of our mats in the guild vault. Perhaps other guilds are doing the same and using each others' crew skills to benefit one another. It sucks for the economy but can be a very efficient way of getting great gear while working together.

Im sorry but all the crying and pathetic whining that went on in these crafting threads before 1.2 came out about RE and purple gear being to hard to get from RE'ing, your now reaping what you sow with all the changes to make everything easier.

 

I could put how pathetic you all are but ill just get another warning hwahahahahahahahahahaahahaha.

This is a bit hypocritical.. I can only infer from the first statement that you disapprove of these changes, yet you decend to calling the people opposed to the changes pathetic. While I agree with your message to a point, your attitude and tact could use some work. Lets try to keep this constructive.

But yes, easy rarely means good in any MMO. Unfortunately too many gamers have got the "instant gratification" bug and don't want to put forth much effort. Likely leading to current situation if what you say is correct, and Bio caved to those calls.

While I can't speak for others, I've thought that crafting was easy from the start and required little to no effort. If people like that, thats fine. But in its current state, as I said, we need to see more items become far more rare. Hopefully after seeing these changes, the people that called to make it so simple will change thier minds to make this better in the long run.

we need to see more items become far more rare. .

I agree - and I think this will happen as more people progress in 1.2

Let me give an example. As a biochem I can spend my blackhole commendations on black-hole implants and reverse engineer them for a chance to learn the schematic. The mats to make these are very rare (obtained in OPS), and on top of that, only have a small % chance to crit. Plus, I have to gather enough black-hole comms to actually purchase all the different implant types.

These are only being kept in my guild for now, but as we get more mats I'll be supplying some black-hole implants to the server.

The same thing can be done with the campaign relics, black-hole earpieces, offhands, etc.

I think we will see more valuable items appearing before long, once some guilds get more into farming the new ops.

1. Since the release of patch 1.2, Legacy unlocks have become immensely expensive. These were supposed to be things that you just got for fun after playing the game for a certain amount of legacy levels. Instead, these things would take weeks if not months of grinding to unlock just the somewhat interesting ones, then more weeks / months for grinding credits. After buying some of these unlocks, a person is relatively broke.

 

2. Transfering armoring, mods, enhancements and augments into crit crafted gear costs about 120k-160k credits + 300k give or take to purchase or make the crit crafted 1 piece of armor. Multiply that by 5 pieces of armor, offspecs, pvp/pve specs, and you get a huge money sink.

 

3. Rakghoul Event: This event was amazing and I loved it, but you further killed artifice with the free crystals. Although having the crystals for a limited time provides a rare item that can be sold at a later time for a high amount, the fact still remains that nobody has big credits to spend for big items, even with about 4 months time from now, things should remain similar.

 

4. Since Patch 1.2 Biochem/Profession changes: Red Goo went from 400k per stack of 99 to barely 50-100k and nobody is buying. Other biochem grade 6 mats went 50-100k also and nobody is buying, even for dirt cheap prices. The same has been applied to other professions. Columi implants from alien data cubes went from 200k each to not even 25k each. The Highest level implants that biochem could make with an augment slot went from 150k to not even 25k, and nobody is buying any. Diplomacy used to sell a stack of 99 radioactive paste (grade 6 epic) for 1.3 Million credits. Now not one person will buy it for even 500k, even though radioactive paste is still really rare to get.

 

5. The only crew skill that remains remotely viable for making credits are the crit crafted gear w/augment slot crafting professions, which sell 200k-500k per crit crafted item.

 

6. My only current way to make credits is selling companion gifts. I have an entire bank tab full of grade 6 bioanalysis materials and grade 6 diplomacy that I would rather vendor than attempt to sell on the GTN wasting space for the 50 auction limit.

 

7. Conclusion: Patch 1.2 changes & new Tier set of gear should have included another tier of crafting materials and crafted items for ALL PROFESSIONS for endgame. You effectively forced everyone now to go armormech / synth in order to make credits without farming boring dailys and you have effectively KILLED the market for all other professions forcing prices so low that it is not worth sending companions out on missions anymore. It has come to the point where it is more efficient to vendor a stack of mats then try to sell them and any crafted items are outdated and not worth spending money to buy them.

 

*What is your servers experience with the crew skill changes?

Do you think the GTN "any" bug has anything to do with this? It seems to me that this might be magnifying the problems you've listed above.

I agree - and I think this will happen as more people progress in 1.2

......

I think we will see more valuable items appearing before long, once some guilds get more into farming the new ops.

I agree Shlamorel. I think my focus was a bit more pre-OPs, but I think we'll start to see this over the next week or two. I do hold some concern still for those who might not get to (or chose not to) run OPs.. I believe some things do belong in OPs, being the pinacle of most MMOs (imo).. just not everything.

I agree Shlamorel. I think my focus was a bit more pre-OPs, but I think we'll start to see this over the next week or two. I do hold some concern still for those who might not get to (or chose not to) run OPs.. I believe some things do belong in OPs, being the pinacle of most MMOs (imo).. just not everything.

Very true!

Well, the new relics can be obtained from daily commedations, and the black-hole gear can be obtained from doing only flashpoints/daily quests, so that should open up a lot of RE opportunities for crafters who aren't able to get into OPS. It will take a bit longer but definitely doable.

I wonder if one can RE war hero mods/gear... if so, that may be another profitable avenue for crafters - obtain the PvP pieces, RE, then craft them for people.

Excellent ideas, good sir.

I hope people are taking notes, I know I am!

Imo, the problems with weak economies across servers stems from 3 things:

 

1. Not enough rare schematics. Far too many people have access to the same schematics. We need to see a serverly sharp drop in the amount of schematics that drop both from crew missions and ops, and more (or perhaps less? ) rare random world drops. Might be a little late at this point, but moving forward many of these need to be harder to obtain. If everyone continues to have them due to ease to obtain, then prices will continue to hover just over vendor prices as people undercut each other to the detriment of all.

 

2. "Why should I buy X item, when I can get it from missions/vendors?" As an example, being able to obtain things such as armor/weapon mods or gear for planet coms, or from heroic missions, hurts everything pre-OPs. It is a great convenience.. but at the cost of hosing crafters. I can think of a couple of the heroic daily missions giving away BoE mods, which at this point tend to find thier way on to the GTN, being sold for less than the mats cost for the respective crew skill to make them, and took all of 5 minutes to run the mission... I mean really? At the very least, things like this need to be BoP. (Rakghoul event is a great example: Pets were BoP (perfect!) but crystals were BoE!? Sorry artificers.)

 

3. Chance to learn on RE needs to be lower. I know this one will ruffle the feathers of the truely casual player, but this goes back to everyone having the same schematics... and no one making creds off of them.

 

This is pretty much how Im seeing crafting go south day by day..

 

As a side note, so far as people not having money, nothing personal.. but thats just a touch of laziness. Each day you run a full set of dailies (Black Hole, Belsavis, Ilum, and the top 2 space missions) will easily net you over 300k after vendoring drops up to and including blues (assuming you dont need that gear, of course). Even if you only have time to run 1 set a week, or even 1 planet a day, you should still be making money unless your throwing it away.. especially after Bio lowered the repair costs radically. Things like re-mods might be a bit costly up front, but once you get your gear as you like it, your not gonna be re-modding often after that. 1 piece maybe, with some spot modding assuming you want to keep your set bonus.. so just do your dailies!

I agree with your point of view except for the last paragraph. Alot of people do have money, but refuse to spend it. One reason being that there is nothing USEFUL to spend it on besides cosmetics like a different armor appearance/color crystal. You should not have to run dailies all day just to get credits. I personally have not run a daily (excluding black hole weekly) in about 3 months and my bank is fine because I have nothing useful to spend it on. The problem is that the prices have dropped so much on the GTN for crew all crew skills across the board to the point where you cannot make money at it anymore and new crafting items need to be released with each new tier of operation or gear.

Do you think the GTN "any" bug has anything to do with this? It seems to me that this might be magnifying the problems you've listed above.

It will only affect some "new" players who rarely ever used the GTN, in which it seems like they won't have much money to spend at all based on that. Everyone who really wants to check the GTN has already figured out that you have to pick the rarity of the item you want before pressing search.

I agree with your point of view except for the last paragraph. Alot of people do have money, but refuse to spend it. One reason being that there is nothing USEFUL to spend it on besides cosmetics like a different armor appearance/color crystal. You should not have to run dailies all day just to get credits. I personally have not run a daily (excluding black hole weekly) in about 3 months and my bank is fine because I have nothing useful to spend it on. The problem is that the prices have dropped so much on the GTN for crew all crew skills across the board to the point where you cannot make money at it anymore and new crafting items need to be released with each new tier of operation or gear.

I do agree, there isn't much to spend creds on that are player made at this time, unless your gunning for columi level mods (24s i think they are), pehaps a cybertech vehicle, or as you said items for asthetics. There are still a number of items non-player made to blow some creds on though, much of it fluff. But as was posted earlier, you can pick up items to RE off daily vendors and from the new tier gear. Definitely a rough grind for a non-raider, but doable. And we will start to see this stuff make its way into the market quite soon I'm sure. At the moment lower end crafters and folks not up for that grind are kinda hosed, no doubt. New stuff is there for top end, lower end really needs the rares I keep harping on though.

I know it was a bit OT and I probably shouldn't have posted it here, but since it was mentioned I ran with it. Dailies aren't the only means of picking up creds, just arguably one of the quicker (and perhaps tedious) ways outside the GTN once you get a good rhythm.. but thats not crew skills and OT.. we can agree to disagree.

While I don't think top-tier PvE mods should be craftable at all, there is still plenty of things that could be fixed without pissing off the playerbase.

One of the problems I've seen is that most people are actually barely making by, we still have people having to borrow money for repairs and cannot afford augments (even when I'm crafting them for guildies without making profit). As for me, even before 1.2 augment boom, I was doing well and for first few weeks after 1.2 I felt like Uncle Scrooge but most other crafters in my guild didn't seem to take advantage of the situation. Now the prices have settled down for the most part we're talking about 20-50k profit per item, whether it be augmented piece of custom gear or augments themselfves. There's plenty of competition by now and GTN mechanics favor those who can post same item multiple times to keep matching lowest bids, players with less resources can't really afford to do that because you won't really make money if you keep cancelling and reposting due to high deposit cost that you only get back if auction expires.

My idea for helping the economy is to give oppoturnities to those players who do not have the knowledge/crafting to start trading or crafting. Think about other MMOs, what is usually the easiest way for new players to earn money and doesn't require any investment, just time? I'm talking about resource gathering of course. Currently the way SWTOR gathering is implemented is that vast majority of crafting resources are generated by crafters themself and there's no reason to go out there and gather resource nodes because the yield is so small. And because the gathering is not worth it, there's not enough suppliers to bring prices down to the level where crafters would rather buy them directly than wait 25min for crew skill missions. Just from top of my head, two things that could help is to either increase the node yield so that it would be worth putting in the extra work and gather the materials by yourself or there could be some additional crafting reagents that you can only get from common resource nodes, this would give real reason for people to go gathering and all those other materials they get on the side would end up on the market.

I guess the bottom line is, most people will never be able to support themselves with crew skills and they need other avenues rather than just few daily missions.