Augmented gear will just jump in price by a couple mil then. I'll sell my augmented sabers for 3 mil cause the only other way people will get em is for 5 mil

Or from the other crafter who is not a douche, and still selling them for 150k.

Well we already know crafters will craft the kits and still if you think about it you can still make a lot of money. The difference now is that instead of selling an aug orange armor for lets say 200k you will probably have to sell it less to compete with the increase supply BUT you still can make money with the kits or the variety of armor you put on the GTN.

More people will buy because they will be able to afford it now thanks to more supply so crafters will earn in volume in sales instead of 1 item gaining a big profit an item that you get crit sometimes.

May I suggest NOT making the Elegant ones and instead make the lvl 20 ones? Higher crit rates (assuming elegant ones are still orange @400) and WAY cheaper/faster to harvest mats? I have yet to really meet anybody who really cares what their weapons look like all that much, and you can't preview their look on the GTN anyways, so all people are buying is the "stats". So if YOU want to try to compete against equivelent quality guns that cost 3k to make and can be used 30 levels earlier with your 90k to make guns, I'm gonna guess it isn't going to go that well for you. As somebody else said. L2Economy

 

Oh, and PS. When you actually ARE doing higher level crafting, run missions for the fluxes. The Calius Saj Leeloo or w/e mission costs like 2k to run, and returns over 30 of those high end fluxes. (According to TorHead, average cost is 61 per). That alone will cut your expenses by ~10500 credits.

I have made over 3m credits from armstech since 1.2 dropped so I will continue doing things my own way showing off how much better the Elegant ones look (including taking into account decking half the guild out in a PVE and PVP augmented gun/guns at no cost to them). Also, at higher level crafting you have to decide if sending your crew member out for a half hour to harvest something you can so easily purchase is worth it over sending him out for something else. So are you the guy that cut my sales of 4-5 guns a day at 150-200k credits down to 90k a sale?

I imagine that the materials needed for building the Enhancement kits will be randomly dropped in small quantities as a by-product of the RE process, in addition to the "standard material refund" from RE'ing. Similar to the way that purple crafting materials are currently obtained from crew missions, perhaps ? The BW devs do seem to love their RNG, it crops up everywhere

Once the Enhancement kit is applied, will the item be bound to whomever applied the kit ? Or will the enhanced item still be freely tradeable ?

I can see how this change is an attempt to satisfy everyone. That great looking loot piece you just got as a Campaign or HM FP drop can now be further improved by adding an Enhancement slot via the Kit+table method.

• No need to buy an expensive "rare" orange crit-crafted item from a crafter !
  
• No need to strip the mods from your loot drop to place them in an orange crit-crafted shell !
  
• Orange quest rewards will no longer be eclipsed by crit-crafted items with an augment slot...
  

The only time a player will need to buy a crafted orange item from a crafter will be for purely aesthetic reasons, or because they can't easily or immediately get an appropriate piece for a companion via quest rewards.

And crafters can still craft, in fact they will have to craft more items than ever before, because their main source of profit (and possibly sales) will be Enhancement kits, which can only be made by crafting and RE'ing loads of items...

It will also clear the GTN of "dumped" crafted items, because it will be potentially more valuable to RE a surplus item for materials rather than dumping it on the GTN at a cut rate price.

If these "enhancement kits" are tedious to make (i.e. requiring endless grinding of crafted items for RE'ing), their price will be very high, due to the time and materials needed. It will also push up the price of materials on the GTN, because demand for bulk materials will rise.

Adding an augment to an item through the augment table will require an augment kit and credits. The kits can be traded and are created by crafters. RE'ing crafted items gives you the materials required to create augment kits.

Wait. What? In order to get the materials needed to craft an augment kit, I have to craft a bunch of stuff and then RE it for the materials? I guess this is to make sure that only crafters can obtain the materials needed for augment kits? How many items are we going to have to RE to get enough mats for one augment kit? 5? 10? 20?

3. Where will the schematic for the augment kit be obtained? As it is, any level 10 with a companion can craft 99% of the items a level 50 can, though at a slower rate. As poor as this system is for a dedicated crafter, it's better than the way the orange gloves/boots schematics are distributed- by random chance and gated by being in an operation.

The no-win question is, will the schematic be available to everyone and their wookie or will it require the elitism of an operations group?

I'm hoping it will be somewhere in the middle of this. Making it an ops drop just basically validates the old saying "and the rich get richer". I wouldn't mind seeing the schematics going onto a daily vendor like the red and blue crystals are and making them BOP.

I'm hoping it will be somewhere in the middle of this. Making it an ops drop just basically validates the old saying "and the rich get richer". I wouldn't mind seeing the schematics going onto a daily vendor like the red and blue crystals are and making them BOP.

If the Augment Kits are universal, i.e. anyone can use them regardless of level, then their pricing on the GTN will naturally be determined by what a L50 player can afford. That means that only L50 players and their alts will be able to afford them.

But I can't see any way of making them "level-bound", unless they can only be applied to non-upgradeable gear (i.e. NOT orange shells). Otherwise, what will happen to a L11 orange shell with an augment slot added via augment kit ? If the kit is only valid for upgrading L11 items, should the augment slot "fall off" if the orange shell is upgraded more than a pre-determined amount of levels ?

As usual, the gap between what will actually be implemented, as opposed to what was said in the podcast, will probably be significant.

As usual, the gap between what will actually be implemented, as opposed to what was said in the podcast, will probably be significant.

This what you said right here. This is why I can never really trust BW on what they say will or won't be implemented.

if it's just one generic kit...expect that to be selling for cheap, thus rendering crafting useless again. I want to think they will get this right...but I have lost faith in BW's ability to get anything right.

If it's done right, it should be created by the same crafters who could have made the augmented gear. So, for example, a level 10-19 robe would need, say, a "Synthweaving Augmentation Kit 1". To add an augmentation to a level 50 rakata trooper chestplate would use an "Armormech Augmentation Kit 5". (Requiring the item level to be 10+ to have a slot added doesn't seem like much of an imposition).

The ability to add an augment slot is, and should be, about player choice and customisation.

It is not, and should not be, about how X crafter can make/will lose money.

Player choice and customisation is a key way to attract new players, and are great features that will retain existing players. This can only be a good thing, and BW appear to know that.

All the complaints and doomsayers talking and speculating about how this will cause crafters to lose out come down to one thing: greed.

Crafters can make a multitude of items, and this is one tiny aspect of crafting. It will not bankrupt any crafter. Life will go on.

People should be happy that others love and enjoy the game, and not always look to exploit a situation or view it in zero-sum terms when it's not.

Adding an augment slot should be achievable by any +10 level player with any craft. After all, we all pay to play and enjoy this game, well at least I know I do.

RE'ing crafted items gives you the materials required to create augment kits.

That's probably the worst idea I've heard about how to obtain mats for something. Just make it take the regular mats and be done with it.

If it's done right, it should be created by the same crafters who could have made the augmented gear. So, for example, a level 10-19 robe would need, say, a "Synthweaving Augmentation Kit 1". To add an augmentation to a level 50 rakata trooper chestplate would use an "Armormech Augmentation Kit 5". (Requiring the item level to be 10+ to have a slot added doesn't seem like much of an imposition).

I think you've probably hit the nail on the head honestly. I suspect if you use such a thing on an orange piece of gear (low level with a lower augmentation kit), it will limit the mods and enhancements you can put in it, or perhaps just the level of the augment.

Anyway, people have to remember that the game is balanced for people not having augments, so Bioware has two choices. They can either rebalance with the assumption that everyone has augment slots (easy to do if you just nerf stat benefits per point by a fixed percentage), or they can retain the expensive nature of getting augments in certain slots.

These new devices had better be limited to use on player crafted gear. Otherwise BW is just being lazy. Rather than give players the schematics necessary to fill the demand for appearance variety we take the shortcut and just let people through augments in any random loot drop...

Why not just do the hard work?

That's probably the worst idea I've heard about how to obtain mats for something. Just make it take the regular mats and be done with it.

I dunno, it kind of makes sense. Think of it like a 'second chance' lottery type of thing. Let's say you want to get two augmented blackhole implants. Well, you make ten and one crits. You have one of them, and can reverse engineer the eight more to 'buy' an augment for the last one. If the augment kit materials are both slot specific and can only be used to augment items of equal item rating or lower this would actually be a brilliant (though likely expensive) solution to people with really crappy RNG luck.

Really, if this is the way it works, then it's really an effective (and probably MUCH easier from a coding perspective) way of creating a system where your chance to crit increases after each try until you crit, at which point it resets. AND(!!) you can do this without changing the average crit rate (sans bonuses). I think that's really the way to think of it, as a buffer against crappy random streaks.

The only reason that I have doubts about them limiting it quite in this fashion is the following. Do they really want to introduce 100s(!) of new items into the database? I don't know if they will have green/blue/purple, but imaging a buttload of items like Augment Slot Crafting Material [Head] (140). These clearly wouldn't stack. =) It'll be interesting to see how they do it. I hope it's done intelligently.

That's probably the worst idea I've heard about how to obtain mats for something. Just make it take the regular mats and be done with it.

No it is not. Think about it...

If it required only base mats, then we'd farm those mats with little to no interaction with other crafters (directly or via GTN). With this mechanic, we'll have a pretty compelling reason to buy up crafted items and RE them, creating a nice cycle of supply and demand, rather than just supply, which wrecks our economy. With any luck this will keep the price of crafting these kits fairly high, which keeps crafters in business with their augmented sales.

No it is not. Think about it...

 

If it required only base mats, then we'd farm those mats with little to no interaction with other crafters (directly or via GTN). With this mechanic, we'll have a pretty compelling reason to buy up crafted items and RE them, creating a nice cycle of supply and demand, rather than just supply, which wrecks our economy. With any luck this will keep the price of crafting these kits fairly high, which keeps crafters in business with their augmented sales.

Why would you buy crafted items in one scenario but not buy mats in the other scenario? Won't people just gather their own mats, make their own items, and RE them?

1. Are players the only way to obtain these kits?

Yes.

2. What items will be RE'able to get the materials to make the kits?

Crafted gear.

3. Where will the schematic for the augment kit be obtained?

From a Crew Skill trainer.

This will work very nicely if the augment kits are level-tiered.

Augment kits are tiered.

I imagine that the materials needed for building the Enhancement kits will be randomly dropped in small quantities as a by-product of the RE process, in addition to the "standard material refund" from RE'ing.

Not quite. Augment material drops from reverse engineering are not random. They are, however, in addition to the standard return you see now.

How many items are we going to have to RE to get enough mats for one augment kit? 5? 10? 20?

It's currently set to 10, so that's what you can expect to see when it first hits Public Test. As with anything that's not live, this is subject to change.

I expect that many people will not use those 10 crafts on the item they want. Instead, they'll make one copy of the item, then if it does not crit they'll make 10 cheap items that fall into the same range and provide the necessary component.

It's becoming a bit expensive to maximize your gear at this point. 120K per Campaign / WH piece and than whatever absurd amount they'll add to these Augment Tables.....

Psst! It's supposed to be! Endgame is balanced assuming no augments.

if it's just one generic kit...expect that to be selling for cheap, thus rendering crafting useless again. I want to think they will get this right...but I have lost faith in BW's ability to get anything right.

The minimum cost would be the cost of running the missions/gathering materials to make the gear that would then have to be RE'ed for the kits. I can't see this being extremely cheap.

That's probably the worst idea I've heard about how to obtain mats for something. Just make it take the regular mats and be done with it.

What exactly is the problem? You make a bunch of green level crap with mats you picked up off the ground, for free, then RE them for the special mats you need to make the augments. The biggest cost is from the special mat that you can only get by buying/doing missions. But that is so inexpensive who cares?

You're acting like this is an imposition. It's not that big a deal. This is especially good for new players who will be REing as a matter of course anyway. Only established crafters are a little behind the mark and will have to do a small amount of extra work to get what they need. Give me a break.

These new devices had better be limited to use on player crafted gear. Otherwise BW is just being lazy. Rather than give players the schematics necessary to fill the demand for appearance variety we take the shortcut and just let people through augments in any random loot drop...

 

Why not just do the hard work?

If you listened to the podcast or actually read any length into this thread you would already know that's not the case. This is not about making it easier for crafters to have augments, it's about allowing players to look the way they want and remain competative by putting augments into gear that would otherwise never be able to have it, like social gear.

If you listened to the podcast or actually read any length into this thread you would already know that's not the case. This is not about making it easier for crafters to have augments, it's about allowing players to look the way they want and remain competative by putting augments into gear that would otherwise never be able to have it, like social gear.

I agree but why not let crafters buy social gear and RE it to get schematics?

If you listened to the podcast or actually read any length into this thread you would already know that's not the case. This is not about making it easier for crafters to have augments, it's about allowing players to look the way they want and remain competative by putting augments into gear that would otherwise never be able to have it, like social gear.

Which is, again, why it is a mistake. Why would anyone craft another bit of armor after 1.3?

So are you the guy that cut my sales of 4-5 guns a day at 150-200k credits down to 90k a sale?

Possibly. I found a niche with a large profit margin and filled it. That's what's likely to happen when you significantly overcharge. Competition will move in and drop the prices below what it would have probably stabalized at had the prices been more reasonable to start with. Hopefully I brought it down before too many people noticed the profit margins and started skilling up their own armstechs.