Another economic problem!

I voiced my opinion on the official thread, I basically agree with the sentiments of the OP.

Moddable gear essentially renders non-moddable counterparts obsolete.

A player can go from wearing moddable gear, obtained via planet commendations, to "Tier" armour without ever buying non-moddable gear on the GTN.

And so, as it stands, there is little reason to buy non-moddable items. A situation which is about to be made worse with the coming patches allowing players to completely strip mods from tier armour and put them into moddable "orange" armour.

So soon, not only will non-moddable crafted gear be rendered useless, but gear from HM FP's and Ops will be partially rendered useless because people will only want the mods in the items, not the items themselves.

/golfclap bioware.

With the current official post up about the SWTOR economy I thought I would post up my two cents.

Am I the only one who sees a problem with these "orange" items?
They are great and all that and my problem isn't really with them, its the fact that they have kind of made the market for green and blue items defunct.

No one buys green or blue items, or if they do its only for their companions every now and then. It has created a flooding of these items on the GTN for next to nothing and at the prices I've seen they may as well just vendor them. Its a shame really, it feels like a waste.

I'm not thinking a change to the orange items is needed but surely something can be done to give these poor green and blue items a use in the world?

Like the OP, I think you're underestimating the amount of 1 - 49 players that don't bother with orange gear.

I voiced my opinion on the official thread, I basically agree with the sentiments of the OP.
"Orange" Moddable gear essentially renders non-moddable counterparts (green, blue and purple) for the same slots obsolete.

The only time when a player may be interested in non-moddable items is when leveling up. But once they get to end game, that changes because the stats on moddable items are actually better whilst being cheaper than their non-moddable counterparts.

Which means that a player can go from wearing moddable gear, obtained via planet commendations, to "Tier" armour without ever buying non-moddable gear on the GTN.

All they need is commendations for the respective planets to buy the gear, and additional commendations to buy the best armouring / scope mods outside of raiding from vendors on Ilum.

And so, as it stands, there is little reason to buy non-moddable items. A situation which is about to be made worse with the coming patches allowing players to completely strip mods from tier armour and put them into moddable "orange" armour.

So soon, not only will non-moddable crafted gear be rendered useless, but gear from HM FP's and Ops will be partially rendered useless because people will only want the mods in the items, not the items themselves.

/golfclap bioware.

I edited my post, you are correct yes. However, once a player hits 47 - 50, the moddable gear outstrips and costs far less than non-moddable gear. And that's where the economy should be thriving, with different armour being crafted and sold, because everyone is within the same level range.

All you need is the commendations from the planets to get the inital items, and high end commendations to buy the mods.

IMO, at cap level, 90% of the economy for gear SHOULD be about orange mod gear AND the mods and augments for them. Gear is disposable below cap, but not really at cap. Yeah, that's new compared to other MMOs, but I feel it is a good direction to head in.

Problem is, the market then becomes one focused solely on mods, not complete items. now that might be a non-crafters wet dream who yearns for infinite customisation without reliance on crafters. But it essentially makes the majority of crafting professions non-moddalbe schematics obsolete.

I agree that it makes non-moddable cap level gear schematics obsolete. These should just be retired from the game IMO, unless they are there soley for skill-ups.

Now, even an orange moddable dominated economy will thrive if the trade professions receive periodic upgrades in their recipes for better and better items and the materials are rare/hard to aquire. In fact it's a good approach for keeping crafting trades viable in a game where raid and PvP commendation gear are going to keep being upgraded over time. Crafted should be on par with non-crafted IMO. In fact, make is better looking high appeal gear to help feed the trade professions IMO.