This can be rather disheartening to have it where the only way to get Blue Rare, and purple Artificing mats is only crew skill missions related to them.

Those who like or don't mind doing mat gathering runs have no choice but to sent companions out on crew skill runs. No drop chance off mobs, no spawn chance on resource nodes. Just pay your companion to get the mats and hope for a purple artificing quality mat.

Player casual convenience wise this is good, so you don't have to do gathering runs or mob farming.

Crafted gear in game economic wise it is not so good. the cost of mats goes up a lot, no chance for a work around, not even by way of gathering it by your own actions. Green mats become the only mats you can save a few creds for production cost on.

This lack of being able to gather/farm blue/purple (rare/artific) mats not only disrupts player freedom, but in that same inconvenience, your bottom line is also broken. Either Players with few options or no alternatives wont enjoy the game as much, or you will limit your player base to select few players who are ok with the crew skill mission as the only means, there by alienating players who want to gather/farm.

Any concerns about people over farming can easily be addressed by a simple drop/spawn rate control.

The answer is simple: The crew skill missions them selves would be, not only easier, but the drop spawn rates of the rare/artific (blue/purples) would still be pretty low. The Convenience incentive for most players would still weigh in favor of most current and many future players to use crew skill missions.

Allowance for a drop/spawn chance from resource nodes, mobs or both would simple open up your potential custom base, as well as create a small boost for the in-game economy.

A small chance shouldn't break the game. A small amount of players running around the servers gathering and farming nodes and mobs shouldn't be too disruptive to other people doing missions.

There is a lot more to gain for everyone from this minor adjustment, and very few disruptions that will occur. Any major problems should be easy for your company to deal with, as major problems very likely end up break the rules you have players agree too.

Crew missions just yield to few resources to really make them particularly useful.

Its such a dumb system. All it does is entice folks to run crew mission bot accounts 24/7 to try and get a useful amount of materials to sell.

You can pretty much always tell how useless a system is by how many people try to automate it.

The rare materials should just be taken out of the game entirely.

If you want to limit or reduce how many of a schematic is produced, just increase the amount of harvest able materials it takes to produce.

Example: A green schematic might take 2 of a harvest able mat. A blue schematic might take 20. A purple could take 60.

Crew missions for rare mats for crafting is a useless, stupid, terribadaweful idea that just needs to go away.

- P

I am pretty sure mat removal wont work.

Many MMOs have been using the concept of rare hard, harder, hardest to get mats for a long long time, and differing them by quality statements just as this game uses rare/prototype, then artificing, then legacy.

It will first off take away a minor sense of accomplishment from the player base. A skillfully built MMO needs to be able to anticipate, to a some extent, how a feature will add or detract to the player experience.

Since many customers will have played other MMOs in the past, removal of rare or harder to get mats would be disruptive to most players or potential players concept of crafting. This same issue will also arise in, new to MMO, players as Real life it self and manufacturing and production systems also deal with material quality difference and availability issues that differ how ease or hard to get. You would not just be defying establish player 'used too,' but also be defying new player, world experience induced, subconscious expectation. Not including young children who have no realistic world experience.

The lack of being able to manually gather harder to get materials in it self defies the norm of most MMO's and this alone would have been slightly disruptive to players who have played other MMOs and gather/farmed such mats. So you already have a small irritant that wasn't game breaking alone, but still a minor irritant that, although not mentioned, or not often mentioned, added to reasons why a player stopped playing.

All personal preferences aside, this game is plagued by small minor irritants like that. Most people are not patient enough to play a game full of minor irritants similar in nature to that.

I'm a crafter that goes out and gathers things on my own. Saves me money and making stuff! It sucks that I have to pay to get the others. I will admit I don't always have time to get the stuff, so sending comps out to get them is a nice deal. But common! I spending a lot of money on them as well! It would be nice to be able to gather them from chances off resources and NPCs too!

This game does have a lot of small things that are strange and annoying... I wanna send 10,000 creds to an alt, the mailbox already has the zero defaulted into it. Sometimes I forget this, and either end up sending 100,000 on accident, or having to pay extra mind to make sure I don't send too much. just this one or two problems wont break the game for me, but still, a lot of little things will weigh something down.

I think the rare material should stay, and it should be gatherable only via companion. By doing this, you put a limit on how many you can gather per day, so insuring the offer of some crafted items can't be too plentiful.

Moreover, if you allow people to farm rare materials, you put in place mechanics that favor grinding, and anything that moves the game towards rewarding the ability of doing boring things for hours is detracting from the game experience, not improving it.

In my experience most people that complain about the gathering/crafting set up are the same people that haven't gotten all companions or haven't bothered to max affection with all companions. At level 50 with all companions maxxed the amount of resources you can get is more than adequate. There are 4 level 50 underworld trading missions, I send companions out on all 4, usually at least 1 returns with mando iron. Unless you are completely impatient and/or are one of the entitled gamers that thinks you deserve everything you want immediately without having to do anything to "earn" it, I don't see the issue.

My main issues have to do with gathering.

1) No where near enough level 50 resource nodes to support an entire server.

2) 2 types of mats within the same rank. One of these is always harder to get than the other, as a result I have stacks and stacks of the common one, and never enough of the rare one. (Add some kind of salvage bot that will trade materials within the same rank for the other of the same rank. Tons of Chanlon? Need Bronzium? Trade the Chanlon for Bronzium, or vice versa. Make the exchange rate 2:1 or something if you have to.)

3) Neutronium and Amorphous Carbonite - I had like 20 stacks of both, finally just sold it to a vendor. These 2 materials are WAY too plentiful when there are virtually no recipes in any of the crafts that require it. (Salvage Bot would fix this too. Heck, make it a Legacy unlock.)

3) 3 missions for Durasteel, 2 missions for Zal Alloy. WHY?! There are just as many things that use more Zal Alloy than Durasteel, add another Zal Alloy mission PLEASE. (If #1 wasn't an issue, missions wouldn't have to be our main source of materials.)

I think the rare material should stay, and it should be gatherable only via companion. By doing this, you put a limit on how many you can gather per day, so insuring the offer of some crafted items can't be too plentiful.

 

Moreover, if you allow people to farm rare materials, you put in place mechanics that favor grinding, and anything that moves the game towards rewarding the ability of doing boring things for hours is detracting from the game experience, not improving it.

If the game wasn't facing a hard time where players are leaving and few are coming back, then I wouldn't suggest making any changes. But the player base is dwindling slowly down to just hardcore gamers, hardcore Star Wars Fans and gaming addicts. The general truly casual players are disappearing. If EA and Bioware are to restore the game and increase the players attracted to it, then freeing up some minor things that they closed off is what needs to be done. An MMO is not doing good if it is only limping by on hardcore players, hardcore lore fans, and/or addicts. It has to consider a larger variety and accept players who may not play the same way you do.

MMOs commit suicide from stubbornness, and not fixing things, as well as not allowing enough player freedom on things. Adding a few features without taking anything away is the wisest choice. If that means enduring a couple or a few player controlled farmer players, then that should be perfectly acceptable. Hard-lining a "NO FARMERS" idea is a bad thing cause not only do you alienate those who do or would, but you also cause a minor irritation in the general pop or even potential players who would only farm on occasion, or rare times.

If your irritating the general or potential players, your making it harder on your self to gather a player base. And that is the problem that this game is facing now, and why there are fewer and fewer high pop servers. And the inability to gather blue purples manually from nodes or mobs is one of the irritants.

If the game wasn't facing a hard time where players are leaving and few are coming back, then I wouldn't suggest making any changes.

Maybe, but making the game LESS appealing to casuals probably isn't the way to go about it, and fire/forget mat gathering seems to be pretty appealing to said casuals. I tend to always get ALL my mats from missions to save money. (and yes, it is saving money. I can make more in that amount of time by doing things OTHER than gathering. Gathering in person is wasting time = wasting money)

And economy wise... well, with the exception of stuff available from commendation vendors, even including the cost of running missions in the mat cost, you can STILL sell what you make below the default cost of most other things and still make a nice profit. (and, incidentally, the blues/purples needed for blues/purples only being available from missions is true for EVERY crewskill, not just artifice) And, further economy wise, I'd be willing to bet crewskill missions are THE #1 money sink in the game. And we all know how important money sinks are to an MMO's economy.

In my experience most people that complain about the gathering/crafting set up are the same people that haven't gotten all companions or haven't bothered to max affection with all companions. At level 50 with all companions maxxed the amount of resources you can get is more than adequate. There are 4 level 50 underworld trading missions, I send companions out on all 4, usually at least 1 returns with mando iron. Unless you are completely impatient and/or are one of the entitled gamers that thinks you deserve everything you want immediately without having to do anything to "earn" it, I don't see the issue.

..You do realize you are accusing these people(like the op) of being lazy or wanting everything immediately....when what she is asking for is the chance to actually do *MORE* work to get the item in question.

It makes absolutely no sense to accuse someone of being entitled when what they want is another chance to gain the item by doing actual work to get it.

What your saying is you are quite happy with a 25% lottery chance so that *you* can immediately get the item. No work on your end, you do not even have to be logged in at the time, setup.

That is fine, and what the op suggests does not change your lottery setup at all.

All it does is add real world(forgive me, Game World) nodes to the mix. These can have the same % even. A rare spawn form the normal spawns.

I like the idea myself. It gets to the point very quickly where you do not even harvest a resource node if you see it as it is pointless. You wont get anything worthwhile, and very often the nodes are still bugged.

The crafting/resource system could use a little tweak like this to help smooth things out.

..You do realize you are accusing these people(like the op) of being lazy or wanting everything immediately....when what she is asking for is the chance to actually do *MORE* work to get the item in question.

It makes absolutely no sense to accuse someone of being entitled when what they want is another chance to gain the item by doing actual work to get it.

 

What your saying is you are quite happy with a 25% lottery chance so that *you* can immediately get the item. No work on your end, you do not even have to be logged in at the time, setup.

That is fine, and what the op suggests does not change your lottery setup at all.

All it does is add real world(forgive me, Game World) nodes to the mix. These can have the same % even. A rare spawn form the normal spawns.

 

I like the idea myself. It gets to the point very quickly where you do not even harvest a resource node if you see it as it is pointless. You wont get anything worthwhile, and very often the nodes are still bugged.

The crafting/resource system could use a little tweak like this to help smooth things out.

How you got my statement being directed at the OP is beyond me. I said, In my experience most people that complain about the gathering/crafting set up are the same people that haven't gotten all companions or haven't bothered to max affection with all companions.

And as you said, and I highlighted, how can you make it easier?! No work involved, don't even have to be logged in. Adding another source for the same material without changing the current source means more rare materials. More rare materials never helps economy. Server economies are already garbage, they don't need help to be even worse.

Adding another source would also make those crew skill less useful. As it stands now, you can either A) take all crew skills required for a single craft or B) take something else and have to trade for the mats you need for your craft.

First one makes you self sufficient, second should help server economies.

Nothing needs to be changed.

personally i usually dont have a problem getting blue mats as the system is designed.

HOWEVER, i can see to have a slight chance in harvesting normal nodes to find a blue or purple. also just leave in thier missions as is.

BUT i can forsee some obstacles in implimenting this. one is how will ut rares be done as you have two branches of rares: metals and cloth? also how will you do acheology which has synthweaving and artificing with several rares involved. second most planets dont have enough nodes and compound this with more people now farming them you will be back at missions real soon again solving nothing.

taking rare mats out of the game isnt a solution unless you are a fan or like playing simplified down 12 year old mentality mmos which was the major reason of success for wow. there are alot of other mmos out there if this is what you enjoy playing. please dont make this one into another rift.

having played a few other mmo's inwhich one in particual had only named mobs drop rare mats ( not 100% either ) with also nodes with about a 5% drop rate which varied tier by tier, you would GREATLY appreciate what bioware has done here with the missions.

getting rares from only flashpoints or other group content wont work when you cant get a group in the first place. now you are back to doing missions again.

naw leave it as it is. perhaps when bioware catches up with the bugs and other problems they can tweek this but right now there isnt a fast nor easy solution to appease a few people that think it needs a change.

The companion gathering rare materials would be a workable solution if the servers had a population that could support the costs crafters have to pay in order send out 5 companions at a time.

On dead servers (like mine) where no one buys stuff from the GTN, and where you literally have to do dailies to afford to be able to send out companions, on top of the just normal gathering that is required, crew skills just become more hassle than they are worth bothering with.

I might as well just go biochem and be rid of the hassle.

ADD TO THIS

To get the metals I need from underworld trading, I'm LUCKY to have 2 metal missions pop up when I do have the money to send out companions.

So to work around this issue I have to zone or log out/log in to get new missions constantly, just to be able to gather the metals I need.

I mean... REALLY?!?! This is REALLY the system?

ADD TO THAT

The RE system is still borked. I pretty much have to burn a weeks worth of gathered mats just to get a single useful schematic. And once thats done, its weeks before I even begin to turn a profit selling those items on the GTN.

The crew skill system basically collapses in on itself and becomes borked beyond frustration on low population servers and something needs to be done to address that.

- P

No drop chance off mobs, no spawn chance on resource nodes.

Actually there is a drop chance from mobs - I've seen prototype and artifact gems and metals drop (I'd assume cloth can, too, but haven't actually seen it happen). The chances of a drop are vanishingly small, though - I've gotten more mission discoveries from mob drops than I have materials.

Actually there is a drop chance from mobs - I've seen prototype and artifact gems and metals drop (I'd assume cloth can, too, but haven't actually seen it happen). The chances of a drop are vanishingly small, though - I've gotten more mission discoveries from mob drops than I have materials.

I assume that's from REing drops? I've never *ever* gotten any sort of mat as a drop from mobs otherwise, and playing since December.

I assume that's from REing drops? I've never *ever* gotten any sort of mat as a drop from mobs otherwise, and playing since December.

Nope, direct drops of gemstones and metal (don't think I've ever gotten prototype/artifact level materials from REing a drop). It's vanishingly rare, though. As in "my Legacy is up to level 34 or so, and I've seen maybe four materials drops across my eight alts" rare, the most recent one a couple of weeks ago.

My server has no grade 1-4 UWT mats priced under 1k each and same goes for TH gems, that is if theres any for sale at all. My old server if you search by treasure hunting mats in only gives you TWO pages and its only Corusca gems nothing else not even blue quality.

The thing I dont understand is if crafted items are supposedly so horrible and inferior then why is there a shortage of mats?

First post I've ever seen that is telling an MMO they want to farm.

When your doing your dailies why not farm I mean theres so many nodes you basically trip over them.

First post I've ever seen that is telling an MMO they want to farm.

Well, this is the first MMO that has actually managed to come up with something worse than farming.

- P

Matching most of the blues to there easily respectable normal gathering nodes should be a good start.

Underworld trading Metals to chance on scavenging Nodes.

Treasure Hunting Gems to Arch Nodes.

Diplomacy Med Supplies to BioAn nodes, though you will be lacking the light dark alignment changes.

Underworld Trading Luxury Fabrics would be a Mob chance.

Research Components could be both scavenging and arch node chance. Scavenging cause it is far more direct to metals and components would be used in Armstech. Arc h odes as well, cause, well more from an out of game context idea, it is a researched item, and messing with gems and crystals requires a more delicate touch sometimes. Real Life high tech material require crystalline substances sometimes, so why not use that reasoning to justify it in game?

As far as the affect on the in game economy, the rarity of materials already is bad enough that too few players can even find what they need, let alone want. This fact in it self discourages current players and will discourage new players if/when they hear of it. So we actually do need more mats in the GTN. If there is more stuff on the GTN then more players will have more confidence in the GTN and it will be less of a reason on why some players get discouraged about the game or even quit.

This isn't the time for SWTOR to be using idea's that scare potential players, or current players off. So some limits have to go.

Also the word Economy in it self, originally means to Economies, as in to make more efficient, more available, and to reduce cost. Sadly though, that is not the definition used by so called 21st century RL economist.