What were the overall material returns though? Did you see much higher Prototype and Premium materials in the Rich missions compared to Bountiful? Or were they roughly the same?[...].

~4 for Rich, 4.5 for bountiful artifacts... prototype was ~50% more mats from bountiful, and 50% less for premium...

it's quite possible Rich is meant to return more artifact pieces (and should) but that zero tells me that the entire range is being supplied by a single highly random number..... which is odd considering the stability of crit rates even at low counts, I had always assumed they used a double roll, or gausian function to make it behave more predictably*)

*

Wrong.

 

the only change in crit rate for grades 1-10 has been (and still is) the "subscriber bonus" which is +10% for orange difficulty, and +15% for yellow/green/grey..... these were leftovers from the base crit rate before F2P, but removed for F2P players... no other color difficulty modifiers have been in place for crewskils since launch... until 6.0 and grade 11

I have always understood that critical chance was modified by the mission difficulty, such that critical crew skill mission rewards would naturally become more likely as you leveled your skill and mission difficulties changed from orange to grey. I have always been a subscriber so I have never appreciated this to be an exclusive subscriber perk, and unlike other areas of the game, for example GSF, where the benefits of subscribing over F2P are clearly spelled out. There is no visual indication of this that I recall. However I have certainly been wrong before. I would appreciate a screenshot or a link to where the devs said this is a subscriber feature and not a natural effect of leveling your crew skill and missions decreasing in difficulty because of that.

Regardless, there is far more that you and I agree upon than this issue. Personally, I don’t think the presence or absence of a stealth change to critical chance beyond the phenomenon I have described is the largest obstacle to crafting in 6.0 becoming fun or even tolerable. However, like I said, there are far more points you and I agree upon than this issue so if I’m wrong about critical chance than so be it.

~4 for Rich, 4.5 for bountiful artifacts... prototype was ~50% more mats from bountiful, and 50% less for premium...

 

it's quite possible Rich is meant to return more artifact pieces (and should) but that zero tells me that the entire range is being supplied by a single highly random number..... which is odd considering the stability of crit rates even at low counts, I had always assumed they used a double roll, or gausian function to make it behave more predictably*)

 

*

at it's most simplistic, something like

Random( 0, 100 ) + Random( 0, Crit * 2 ) > 100 = Critical Roll

rather than

Random( 0, 100 ) + Crit > 100 = Critical Roll

 

basically the more random elements being added the more likely they are to fall around the target "average", just like when rolling 2D6 instead of 1D6

I had noticed the actual range of numbers was far wider than previous tiers, with no set minimum. Previously you could get something along the lines of 2-8, now it seems more akin to 0-20. They certainly could do with narrowing that range for grade 11, as well as matching the range to be closer to material requirements for the grade 11 crafting schematics.

They've definitely got the ability to tinker with it, we've seen that with the increase in premium material returns, they didn't go anywhere near far enough to compensate for the increased material requirements though. It's the sheer range that is possible that completely kills the crew gathering skills though.

Sadly it isn't much different to gathering in the open world, the nodes don't increase in line with the new material requirements, which then makes the parity between grade 11 and the previous grades in terms of time required far too much.

I guess they ruined it so people would use the cartel?

That's probably the most logical explanation behind their 6.0 crafting "update." They wrecked it from top to bottom. How does this accidentally happen, it's impossible.

I have always understood that critical chance was modified by the mission difficulty, such that critical crew skill mission rewards would naturally become more likely as you leveled your skill and mission difficulties changed from orange to grey. I have always been a subscriber so I have never appreciated this to be an exclusive subscriber perk, [...].

you can find mentions of the crit rate division for crew skills coing all the way back to 2012, although the original dev explanation of it seems lost to the ages. There used to also be a mention of the reduced crit rate on the F2P comparison page, but the current one on the EA site makes no mention.

things that do change for each color difficulty are failure rate (which was also recently increased in 6.0) for non-crafting crew skills, 0/1/5/10% grey/green/yellow/orange difficulty estimated prior to 6.0 (to my knowledge we never got a dev post on those, they were all community derived).... the new 6.0 values are higher, estimated at +5%. The other thing that changes based on color difficulty is the points awarded towards leveling a crew skill... 0, 1, 2-3, 4 for grey, green, yellow, orange

but you don't have to take my word for any of it, all these numbers are quite easily tested, and are surprisingly stable even at very low sample sizes for grade 1-10.... just as long as you add up the bonuses yourself, because the ingame displays have been wrong since 5.10, and never counted all bonuses anyways.

companion level dived by 2 and rounded down.

Legacy perk

Guild fortune set (there's some bugs with this one)

guild +crit or +efficiency skill

guild bonus perks for specific crew skill types

all those are directly additive

+success amps reduce failure rate

+efficiciency amps reduce time AFTER normal effieciency has been applied

and remember that Crit rate is not a percentage of total attempts, but of total successes (failure rate is rolled first as pass/fail, and crit is only rolled for on a pass)

I assume all this math stuff is painting a really inefficient picture regarding the crafting system. I don't even need mathematical proof, though. All I need to do is start trying to craft to realize it's awful.

 

Crafting should be engaging, I know crafting usually has the reputation of being boring but for many people (like me) I always enjoyed crafting on MMOs and many past games including SWTOR had fairly fun crafting systems.

 

SWTOR wasn't the best, but it was decent enough to give players many ways to make credits via crafting. Crafting also offered rare armor pieces too, the old recipes that were gained through reverse engineering the armor shells. So there were many useful features crafting offered players on SWTOR.

 

Then 6.0 happened. With no explanation of why, BW completely gutted and ripped out their old crafting system replacing it with a gigantic cluster-ckuf of a new crafting system. The best part was how players played the crafting system on the PTS and reported their findings immediately, that being the crafting system was illogical and crafting mats were beyond ridiculous in costs now.

 

Instead of heeding the players criticisms, BW ignored all crafting-related feedback while they were fairly receptive to other feedback related to other new game features BW felt were more important than crafting. It was as if they were told to go total dark on anything crafting-related, because all threads and posts focused on 6.0 crafting was met with crickets by Eric Musco and Co.

 

Now, months later, crafting on this game is still no longer a feature worth engaging in. And they have nothing to say on it, either. lol. Par for the course, though.

Somebody pin/sticky/broadcast this post as it sums up everything wrong with crafting 6.0 onwards.

Also, I'm stealing cluster-ckuf for repeated gratuitous use Can't believe I didn't think of this before seeing your use of it.

Somebody pin/sticky/broadcast this post as it sums up everything wrong with crafting 6.0 onwards.

 

Also, I'm stealing cluster-ckuf for repeated gratuitous use Can't believe I didn't think of this before seeing your use of it.

lol I missed this post. ^

Not much difference wityh crafting imo. I still don't even bother doing augs now. I just buy kits and augs from players. I make enough to avoid crafting and messing with it myself as gearing a toon takes some time investment enough, and the tedious nature of crafting is just too much now.

I guess this is subjective though.

I used to craft up until just recently while many quit before that, too. I guess I should say, I met my threshold of patience with crafting and now won't bother with it on SWTOR. Glad others still do it though, lol. I will just buy from them.

lol I missed this post. ^

 

Not much difference wityh crafting imo. I still don't even bother doing augs now. I just buy kits and augs from players. I make enough to avoid crafting and messing with it myself as gearing a toon takes some time investment enough, and the tedious nature of crafting is just too much now.

 

I guess this is subjective though.

 

I used to craft up until just recently while many quit before that, too. I guess I should say, I met my threshold of patience with crafting and now won't bother with it on SWTOR. Glad others still do it though, lol. I will just buy from them.

Well subjective or not, I think you do have a point. I came back after another long break and one thing I looked at is crafting. The only positive change I've seen, and it is significant, is the increase in conquest mat rewards. That makes crafting augments or anything endgame a lot better.

I still feel that crafting overall is still very expensive and the input is too high for the output in general. You'd have to be a pretty dedicated crafter with a lot of resources to turn a profit out of endgame crafting. And for example the stims are only a small step up from the previous ones but for an enormous price increase. So there is definitely no proper balance in it still.

Since I have all the augment schems I need and conquest mats are easier to come by, it's worth crafting augments again, though I'm more interested in equipping my characters than actually turning it into a profit. So I suspect that I'll be selling them once I'm done outfitting my toons with augments (and I just have 3 characters left I think). Crafting is still not something I enjoy in the new expansion.

Crafting still sucks btw. Just wanted to bring this back to the forefront.

Totally agree

Crafting still sucks btw. Just wanted to bring this back to the forefront.

I also concur. I just don't bother 6.0 crafting unless I need medpacs/stims for my own characters which are the only things that I have the mats for through crew skills and blue quality augments. Anything else is just a waste of credits. I have all the crafting skills and I've never made any armour/offhand items or weapons past green quality to get the skill up. Whatever possessed them to take the fun out of crafting? Those of us who make the effort to craft should be able to get something high level and unique out of it for the character that crafts, but they decided "nah", with the exception of re-useable stims for biochem, which I have only been able to unlock the skill to make on one character (and I have 2 biochemists on each of the three servers I use); it took hundreds of disintegrations for the one that did get it on - in the end I just bought them from the GTN for my other biochem characters but I'd have preferred the satisfaction of being able to make them.

Crafting is just about the only thing I miss from my old days of playing wow. In swtor crafting is just frustrating since 6.0.

You match how I feel. This isn't the first time they've wasted tons of hour revamping the class specs or gearing system but now its crafting, renown, and icons, etc. I keep thinking of all the hours they could have put in toward new content like story, PVP, raids, etc. I've never seen a game redo their core features ever two to three years when it's not like we're getting tons of content. Still, like the game just never did get wasting time on those features when it could go toward new content.

Agree so much. This just seems typical though. Wasting time and resources to change things thst are not broke and not fixing what is. Although I feel crafting got hit because of biowares need to have us group, and hardcore players not liking the fact that crafters can make their own decent gear. Sad really. It's an alternate route for those that put in the time to level all these crafting professions and much deserved to be able to craft your own items and sell on the gtn.

Crafting is a disaster now.

Crafting still sucks btw. Just wanted to bring this back to the forefront.

Its a valid part of the game that is being completely ignored. Its totally defunct atm.

If they are going to look at this again, they need to address the inflation issue at the same time. This might just be increasing credit caps significantly but something!

Crafting itself needs to be meaningful and worthwhile for both the crafters and for the people buying from crafters. Items crated need to be useful or desirable or both. The GTN needs to become a useful tool once more and crew skills need to mean something.