This is purely my opinion on the state of crafting and yes, I know opinions are like ******es.

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*ahem*

 

Bioware (or your EA overlords), your crafting systems sucks. Literally. You suck away my materials, my credits, and my time on a system where I have to rely solely on luck to be successful. Your system is lazy. I click, I wait, I hope. Oh darn, no results. Repeat. Does it matter if your companions have max affection? No, rely on luck. Does it matter if my companions have +10000 whatever crit rating? No, rely on luck. This isn't actual crafting, as the player does none of the actual crafting. This is lazy.

 

If it were up to me, I'd have your devs doing burpees until they passed out or came up with something worthwhile that would actually get the player and the community involved, rather than some lazy system where your minions do everything for you. As it stands, why can't I just have my minions go raid for me? Or just do all my quests for me? Just put it in companion mission form, charge me a fee and there you have it.

 

Here http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/4947 is a list of the top crafting systems in mmo's. All opinion of course. For those that don't feel like checking out the link, they are, EQ2, Vanguard, darkfall,Eve, Pirates of the Burning Seas, Fallen Earth, and * drumroll * Star Wars Galaxies pre-nge. All of those games were out way before this was released and you couldn't, oh I don't know, research what made them so good and improve upon it? Nah, to much work, let's just jumble up some half arsed rng system where the player doesn't actually do anything. Oh and make it based completely on luck. Like said, burpees until good results or the contents of your last meal on the backs of your dev buddies and repeat.

 

Your system is crap. Bar none. It needs an overhaul. Some may agree some may not. That's cool. Need new ideas? Hire me as a consultant, I've got tons of em. Or actually listen to your community, I'm fairly sure they can come up with something a hell of a lot better than the current system.

 

Oh and thanks for the pet tauntaun.......it's really...uh..yea thanks.

Totally agree , crafting is really poor in this game

And now from the other side of the aisle...

 

You seem to be focused on the luck aspect of crafting. Well sorry to tell you this but even in those "best" systems you mentioned luck plays a significant part. The difference is instead of getting lucky with that crafted item getting an augment slot or getting lucky and getting a new schematic from RE, in those games you had to get lucky just to get the materials.

 

As for companions doing the work for you, I love it. I no longer have to devote time and energy to crafting; I can go out and quest or run a FP and still have materials gathered and craft stuff at the same time. In every other MMO I have played I could spend hours just crafting. Sometimes it was what I wanted to do, but a lot of the time, it was just tedious.

 

I am not saying the system is perfect. Personally I think the interface for crafting is lacking due to the sheer volume of schematics it can be difficult to locate the one you want to make.

Edited May 1, 2012 by psandak

I have to agree on this one. To say that crafting is a massive time intensive credit sink is the understatement of the century. Currently on my level 41 Shadow I have FINALLY managed to reverse engineer an Advanced Force wielder armor 17 with cybertech. I am now stuck in a constant loop of having to send my crew for Underworld Metal 4 missions so that I can actually make the damn thing.

 

Then joy of joys it takes half an hour to actually make one when I have the mats. Now true I could spend a small fortune on gifts to increase the speed but honestly it's not like I haven't sunk enough credits into one poxy armor mod as it is. If I was making say an ACTUAL armor top full of mods then maybe it would be worth it but as it stands I have to go through this process FIVE more times just to fill my orange gear with this ONE item.

 

Then lord knows how much time, money and luck it will take to reverse engineer to a Purple quality aptitude and mettle mods... I`m looking at 3 and a half hours just to MAKE the 7 armor items for my gear. Add in the credits, random factor and actual Mission time for the ingredients and frankly it starts to look like the defintion of insanity to ever craft anything again..

 

oh dear now I'm depressed just thinking about it....

And nowfrom the other side of the aisle...

 

You seem to be focused on the luck aspect of crafting. Well sorry to tell you this but even in those "best" systems you mentioned luck plays a significant part. The difference is instead of getting lucky with that crafted item getting an augment slot or getting lucky and getting a new schematic from RE, in those games you had to get lucky just to get the materials.

What I am focused on is the complete disconnect between the actual player and the crafting system. Nothing I can do as a player will affect to outcome of what my companions craft for me. Affection has yet to prove to me that it makes a difference, same goes for crit/ efficiency ratings. In EQ2 you played an active role in making your item better. Materials were fairly easy to get as well.

 

 

As for companions doing the work for you, I love it. I no longer have to devote time and energy to crafting; I can go out and quest or run a FP and still have materials gathered and craft stuff at the same time. In every other MMO I have played I could spend hours just crafting. Sometimes it was what I wanted to do, but a lot of the time, it was just tedious.

I disagree. I don't think i should have to rely on companions for everything craftwise, barring gathering materials, although I've never critted on a node and got a purple so I would assume you'd still need them for that. They should be a bonus to crafting, not the only way to do it.

 

I am not saying the system is perfect. Personally I think the interface for crafting is lacking due to the sheer volume of schematics it can be difficult to locate the one you want to make.

I agree. Although instead of the rng system of finding new schematics, why can't we actually research new ones, for a mat and credit cost? Or research different grades of items?

i don't click and wait, i click and go kill something.

 

i like the system, i can craft and not have it eating into my game time

i don't click and wait, i click and go kill something.

 

i like the system, i can craft and not have it eating into my game time

 

Craft what ? lol nothing end game worth crafting really

I fall on both sides of this.

 

While I completely love the fact that my companions do all of the crafting work, rather than me sitting there and punching buttons when something lights up (EQ2), I do feel that the players should have more of an influence in the outcome.

Affection should play more of a part in the "success" equation than it does. I also think that companion class should also be a fact over and above than the "paltry" bonuses that currently exist (i.e. +5 efficiency or crit).

 

Getting an RE success on every first attempt is a tad overboard, but nobody should have to go more than 25 times before it works on any item. That just leads to frustration and forum posts

There's not much depth in crafting you can do for this game because the game itself is very simple. Just look at the character sheet. What stats are viable for your character's class? From the whole list of fancy names, less than a handful mean anything. Hell, all the Strength, Willpower, Endurance, etc. mean nothing, except for 2 of them for a class.

 

There's not that much variety with the gear if you're hoping for variables via crafting.

I somewhat agree with the luck component but if it had 100% chance then everybody would have those schematics and they would be less valuable. LOTRO also has a crit crafting feature but the chance is controllable and has optional materials that further increase the crit chance significantly.

I invested quite alot in RE schematics and i'm quite disappointed cause they are quite worthless since everybody is using orange gear with free mods from daily quests.

 

Regarding the "click and wait" i kinda disagree, i like the fact companions do all the crafting and it`s not instant.

Stop saying "listen to your community" you're just one person and you do not represent the community as a whole.

 

There are some of us who actually like this system and find it thoroughly refreshing. If anything, the system is a bit too easy and it's far too easy for a person to become self-sufficient and do not require trading/bartering.

 

Recipes are only worth something if they're rare, either time-rare, material-rare or pattern-rare. Biowares system creates product differenciation for crafters and promotes trade.

i don't click and wait, i click and go kill something.

 

i like the system, i can craft and not have it eating into my game time

 

Not when you RE. You have to wait when you RE. And unless the item is stackable you have to RE one at time, even more fing annoying.

Stop saying "listen to your community" you're just one person and you do not represent the community as a whole.

 

Yea, I'm just one person in the ....wait for it.... Community. Also I would venture to guess that I am not the only one....in the community... that is dissatisfied with crafting. I also disclaimed that it was only opinion and should be taken as such. Your assumption that I believed my opinion spoke for all was wrong although you do seem like the type to take it that way just to have something to ***** about.

 

 

There are some of us who actually like this system and find it thoroughly refreshing. If anything, the system is a bit too easy and it's far too easy for a person to become self-sufficient and do not require trading/bartering.

 

I agree, it is to easy. There is little to no involvement beside sending companions to do everything for you.

 

Recipes are only worth something if they're rare, either time-rare, material-rare or pattern-rare. Biowares system creates product differenciation for crafters and promotes trade.

 

Something is only worth what someone's willing to pay for it. If I crapped out a ten carat diamond, would you pay me a million bucks for it?

 

Yay for opinions.

One service I don't see talked about much is a 'research vendor' service.

 

If, say, you wanted to learn a few purple schematics, you could contract me for my time and material in feeding you 20 blues that could then get you that schematic. This would easily take the form of me just sending you batches of blues with a COD cost.

 

The best relationship here would be between somebody with companions that crit better on gathering and mission materials significantly better than you while you critted better and with more efficiently on crafting related to those materials.

Only 2 things I would change about the system.

1) Make the chance to learn schematic on RE 100%. I don't mind the augment on crit chance, but RE'ing Black Hole pieces for nothing is depressing.

2) Make the chance to learn schematic on RE 100%. I don't mind the augment on crit chance, but RE'ing Black Hole pieces for nothing is depressing.

Totally agree , crafting is really poor in this game

Exactly this. I don't want companion gifts. I don't want luxury fabric. I want metal. I need 4 pieces of blue to make 1 stinking mod, and I'm ***lucky*** if I even have a metal mission, and if I do, my idiot companions find a way to muck it up and come back with nothing. And if they manage to get it right, it's 2 pieces of metal after 50 minutes.

 

This is the suckiest system I have ***EVER*** seen, by several orders of magnitude.

My only complaint is also the massive credit vacum crafting involves i love not having to run around hunting materials and on the other not i just save up and buy the rare mats i need from GTN to save myself time and send my companions on missions for common stuff seems to work out much better for me that way,. also yesterday i crafted 26 war helms before i got a schematic which i say is pretty crazy to have to do it that many time cost me well over 120k in creds and tons of materials i am disappointed in that It needs a few tweeks i say give your imput and dont bash them everything i see from the people here is they listen and try to fix various problems. give the people a chance to work on it before u bash them just my opinion. Lots of other bugs and such for them to fix not just crafting.

RNG crafting in swtor wouldn't have been too bad if the crit craft rate was decent. On some things (rakata) the crit chance is way too low, nowhere near the 20% it should be for my fully affectionate Jaesa.

RNG crafting in swtor wouldn't have been too bad if the crit craft rate was decent. On some things (rakata) the crit chance is way too low, nowhere near the 20% it should be for my fully affectionate Jaesa.

 

Actually, I could handle a bad crit rate if underworld metals weren't so terribly difficult to obtain. I have *3* toons that do underworld trading, and OFTEN will see 0 or 1 metal missions between the 3 of them.

I was going to reply with something more substantive, but it is clear that you have no interest in having an adult conversation with anyone who might disagree with you.

 

I will simply say that randomness in crafting and companion crafting are two completely separate matters and that I like both.

Actually, I could handle a bad crit rate if underworld metals weren't so terribly difficult to obtain. I have *3* toons that do underworld trading, and OFTEN will see 0 or 1 metal missions between the 3 of them.

 

They confirmed that that is a bug, I have a support ticket that says so.

If you think it's lazy now, just wait until we get the mythical "augmentation device"...then we won't have to craft anything because people will simply augment their loot drops.