As the topic says. I find the crafting pointless now. Yes biochem has some end game use. But nothing else really. With the introduction of mod gear that can be gotten from commendations there is no reason to have guild crafters. Just farm the first boss in a flashpoint or such and go get the gear you need.

At this point you dont need crafters for low mid or end game so what is the point? Just lvl to 50 as fast as you can and get the moddable gear and then do flashpoints for mod/etc to make it better.

Crafting had some useful aspects in beta.. now it is just a money drain completely. There is no joy from crafting, only frustration that even though you can make epic stuff no one wants it.

Thanks for reading my viewpoint.

Something you'll have to keep in mind for the time being: early server economies are bizarre. Extremely bizarre. It's a bit entirely premature to make a broad proclamation about its uselessness.

On that point, I had at least 200,000 extra credits by level 25 thanks to my own crafting. I don't point this out to say that the crafting system is demonstrably ship-shape right now, it speaks to the limitation of anecdote in figuring out exactly where swtor's crafting system is right now, or where it will be when servers hit the matured phase that, by practical necessity, crafting systems have to be designed around.

its because their is no demand for items other than for your own alts. Everything can be got in game from npc's and commedation vendors.

Actually i think it requires a lot of grinding for commendations to be able to fully equip yourself. Just my low level experience...

BTW, droid equipment sells good.

Yes its new, and early. As in many mmo's it takes months to settle down. But right now not a lot of repeat customer opportunities. Most items are level locked or skill locked. Many items are reusable which hurts crafters. Armor and weapons dont go poof as they are designed, so again no repeat customers. I dont see a good outcome for crafting in this setup. Yeah some crafters are making good money for now. Like people that can make crystals, many are paying well for different colors. But once everyone has theirs......... bye bye worthy skill.

We need demand, so we can supply on a regular basis. Need to pump money into the economy and get this rolling or it will take forever to balance out.

i never rush, i don't see the point, if endgame is all that matters, why not play wow or some other mmo.

Agreed.

In a normal MMORPG, racing to max level makes sense on your second or third character, but even in a normal MMORPG I prefer to stop and smell the roses my first time through: read the quest text for the story, enjoy marveling at the scenery, etc.

But in this game? Racing to max level is almost inexcusible. This is a Bioware game, and they've taken the time and effort to basically craft 8 separate games rolled into one. That's eight games of really good story that you're not going to appreciate as much if you're just powerleveling your way through.

Here's the weird (or fun part) — there's no idea how long it will take until we can see a server crafter economy at maturation. I really wonder how well it's going to work. I suspect that it was designed around mature server properties, since that's where it should be designed around. There could be some major, major holes though, but the question is who can really document and present an adequate case that demonstrates this ... through the haze of premature opinions.

Just noting, and all that. I dunno. I care too much about this stuff, but I think it's interesting!

Here's the weird (or fun part) — there's no idea how long it will take until we can see a server crafter economy at maturation. I really wonder how well it's going to work. I suspect that it was designed around mature server properties, since that's where it should be designed around. There could be some major, major holes though, but the question is who can really document and present an adequate case that demonstrates this ... through the haze of premature opinions.

 

Just noting, and all that. I dunno. I care too much about this stuff, but I think it's interesting!

The crafting system is completely without doubt broken. There were some issues with the necessity of crewskills a few betas back and the last patches introduction of crewskills were truly horrible, I mean awful. on release, the SWTOR community got that awesomely horrible crafting system.

As it stands now, you are much better off doing quests, flashpoints and pvp to get gear than wasting time with crewskill bought gear. If you doubt this, fly to Ilum and Corelia and look at the commendation vendors and fly to Carrick Station and look at the PVP vendors (centurion, champion and battlemaster). Now look at the recipes you have, your jaw will hang low and you'll be like "No, Bioware would not do this, they aren't that incompetent".

There is no reason to use crewskills at 50. I have about 400 tier 6 blue mission materials that I'm using to reengineer weapons and each one that shows up is dissapointment after dissapointment.

For example:

Ilum 8 commendation barrel:

damage 126

endurance 34

cunning 48

Player made artifact barrel (150K credits to get the mats to research + 25K credits mission cost to make a barrel)

damage 124

enduarnace 33

cunning 47

Why would a player pay 25K credits for a purple barrel when they can get a better barrel questing on Ilum? I'm not even going to go into the weapon stats, they are a lot more dissapointing.

The issue raised by the OP is legit. Even though the game is less than a month old, crafting is nearly pointless and will remain so as long as upgrades are so easy to get from commendations and mission rewards. I have a 400 Cybercrafter and the only thing that sells marginally well are earpieces. i lose money trying to keep current with armors and mods. Selling green-quality items is pointless. Blue level stuff can be obtained from commendations. Purple items are better than commendation rewards but people don't really need them when the next blue upgrade is only 2 levels away.

I really like the crafting system BW built. I think they had a completely different team building out commendation rewards. Had the two team sat down for a chat about a year ago they would have realized they were screwing over the crafters. Either this was an oversight or gross negligence....hard to say at this point.

My main is a biochemist so atm i've not really had sight of a lot of the higher tier crafted gear but the above post is a very valid point. If player gear is inferior to the final quest stuff then I can see it weakening the crafter economy.

That being said.... If the opposite were true and crafted gear was THE best then the crafters would have complete control to ask as much as they saw fit. While that may seem like a good idea it makes the player economy THE ONLY WAY, which means more casual players will be at a severe disadvantage since they wont be able to generate the kind of money they need to buy the "best" gear when they get to end game stuff. The happy medium would be to match the crafted and quest/commendation gear which would give people the age old choice of time vs money. If I have the money then do I need to spend several hours (for instance) grinding gear when I can simply buy it. The other downside to crafted gear being better is, "Will people actually play our content which we have spent a lot of money developing" if the reward they get for it isn't as good as something they can knock up or buy off the GTM.

I can see adjustments being made to the crafting system "fairly" soon, but "fairly" will be a couple of months down the road.

in all MMOs the crafting while lvl up is pointless

Sure, keep thinking that way. I made over 300k from lvl 20-30 items already.

You people have absolutely no sense of the market and will complain about anything. Stuff sells, it sells very well, you just need to find the sweet spots.

As the topic says. I find the crafting pointless now. Yes biochem has some end game use. But nothing else really. With the introduction of mod gear that can be gotten from commendations there is no reason to have guild crafters. Just farm the first boss in a flashpoint or such and go get the gear you need.

At this point you dont need crafters for low mid or end game so what is the point? Just lvl to 50 as fast as you can and get the moddable gear and then do flashpoints for mod/etc to make it better.

Crafting had some useful aspects in beta.. now it is just a money drain completely. There is no joy from crafting, only frustration that even though you can make epic stuff no one wants it.

Thanks for reading my viewpoint.

See my post above.

It is a HUGE mistake to go to 50 fast. The market is not at level 50, you don't know how MMOs work. The current people at 40+ will never buy anything from you. They are powergamers, they will raid and play PvP 24/7, they don't need crafters.

People below 30 are buying in drows.

See my post above.

 

It is a HUGE mistake to go to 50 fast. The market is not at level 50, you don't know how MMOs work. The current people at 40+ will never buy anything from you. They are powergamers, they will raid and play PvP 24/7, they don't need crafters.

 

People below 30 are buying in drows.

Well said and very well identified.

Give the economy a month or so then there will be a million plus people looking for good items and cashed up and ready to pay.

Well said and very well identified.

 

Give the economy a month or so then there will be a million plus people looking for good items and cashed up and ready to pay.

this is not the problem. the crafted items are not as good as what you can _very_ easily get from pvp and accomodations. Crafting is a broken system in MMOs. If players can craft the best gear, there is no point in raiding or running instances. If players cant craft the best gear, there is no point to crafting. BW would be better off simply getting rid of crafting altogether as there is no way it could ever work.

this is not the problem. the crafted items are not as good as what you can _very_ easily get from pvp and accomodations. Crafting is a broken system in MMOs. If players can craft the best gear, there is no point in raiding or running instances. If players cant craft the best gear, there is no point to crafting. BW would be better off simply getting rid of crafting altogether as there is no way it could ever work.

You guys need to broaden your horizons, you could easily let crafters make the best gear so long as the mats drop from raids. Developers just arn't willing to put forth the effort to make a good MMO cause the market today just wants quick instant gratification so they whine if they actually have to go find a crafter to make their gear.

Not many people realize that one reason for the feeling that crafting "sucks" is the amoun t of credits that flooded the market due to slicing being OP. It was way too easy to buy everything you needed in the early stages of the game when it should have taken everyone a lot longer to achieve the same goals.

Factor out the easy money and the game was probably fairly well balanced and crafting probably would have been the means to the ends that everyone wants it to be.

I crafted in Ultima Online and WoW. I vowed to never really do this again. I understand your frustration on it though as you should be able to make some gear that everyone else wants. They usually tie crafting up with gameplay to much in that you can't just be a crafter. I always thought crafting worked best if you can develop a system that if you spend x amount of time on something you get y rewards back. If I adventure for four hours then I should get this much coin, but why shouldn't I get the same experience and money for crafting? Just a different play style.

You just described SWG crafting.

The issue raised by the OP is legit. Even though the game is less than a month old, crafting is nearly pointless and will remain so as long as upgrades are so easy to get from commendations and mission rewards. I have a 400 Cybercrafter and the only thing that sells marginally well are earpieces. i lose money trying to keep current with armors and mods. Selling green-quality items is pointless. Blue level stuff can be obtained from commendations. Purple items are better than commendation rewards but people don't really need them when the next blue upgrade is only 2 levels away.

 

I really like the crafting system BW built. I think they had a completely different team building out commendation rewards. Had the two team sat down for a chat about a year ago they would have realized they were screwing over the crafters. Either this was an oversight or gross negligence....hard to say at this point.

As a mid-tier Cybertech (250ish) I can say that I am having no prolbems selling anything I put up. I've got a slew of mid-tier (15-25) purple armor mods that sell as I put them up. I've got blue mods/armor mods from 9 - 27 that sell as I put them up. I've had ship upgrades (grade two) that sold as I put them up (minnd you, right now I've gotten out of the ship mod business temporarily, as the market is glutted atm).

The key is searching for the shortages, and filling the holes --- not just mindlessly crafting and putting things up when there is already a ready supply.

Of course, as has been mentioned --- this is server/economy specific. Different servers' economies are going to behave differently. It is still a new economy, and any economy in any MMO ever made will experience instability in the first 2-3 months...and then, every server within an MMO will have its own unique economy that looks completely unlike most other servers within the same game.

Give it some time to settle....and I am sure Bioware will be making adjustments as well.

What irks me a bit is that as an armorcrafter i'm usually overleveled on what i can craft by the time i find the mats.

Like i needed Chanlon to craft lvl appropriate stuff and was barely getting the bronzium

so looking at this my crafting is barely good enough to outfit my companions or lower level guildies

crafting is cheap and easy to level up at least, getting certian epics wanted may take a little longer, but I am level 39, been buying all my class skill, I have 250k while leveling all 3 of my crew skills the whole time as I played 371 Artifice 370 Archeology 400 Treasure hunting. It is very very easy to cap out, which means anyone who puts any time into it will also cap out, and a lot of people on the server will be making the same stuff and undercutting eachother until stuff sells. As an artificer, I have probably one of the best epic shields at level 34 the mats cost roughly 20k to obtain(unless a rich TH yields me the all the artifact gemstones in 1 go, otherwise it takes 3-4 times at 1500-2k a run, whether I send my companions out to get them or buy from GTN the shield wont even sell for 20k (missions are the only way I know of so far to get epic grade mats other than GTN) so I make the shield and throw it on GTN roughly at cost hoping someone will buy it at that current level, which the chances are about 50/50 because if I charge more, the potential buyer will just be like meh i need to save money for my skills and stuff, I can make due with what I have....

This is the normal situation with most crafters out there, the cost of the mats will almost always excede the current markets sellback price. At endgame levels, people will do a 1 time purchase of whatever they need, or just hold out for drops, while crafters spend hours and hours and tons of credits trying to make that exceptional piece which will almost never sell back for what they put into making it.. so yeah for the majority, it is broken. I have a lot of epic schemes at mid level range hilts shields, focus, enhancements, crystals, but the cost of the synth will almost never even out to the price the item sells for. I personally dont want to make a ton of good gear for those levels and cross my fingers that it will sell, (because recently stuff hasnt sold) so I just craft nessessities for me and my guildmates, as most people will just hold off to see what drops are around the corner rather than shell out credits.

Some people have gotten lucky and found a niche, awesome for you guys, but it is very rare at this moment, even with endgame gear because vendors have 90% of that covered anyway. The only hope I have to turn a profit is some nub throwing up a 5+ stack of epic crafting material for like 1/4 the normal price, not knowing what they have. Because I have never found gemstones, or epic power crystals in the world, which is used in almost all my good cuts. Maybe they are out there but I have explored quite a bit of the world up to hoth and never seen anything like that randomly laying around, meaning I have to buy it one way or another, and once again, pray the item sells.