Some way to add augment slots to existing orange gear is an absolut must, otherwise gear obtained through any means other than crafting will always be inferior, that wouldn't be not devaluing crafting, that would be making crafting mandatory for everyone who wants to compete in the endgame.

Also, like many other people I have my bank filled with orange gear that I'm waitng for to become useful in the endgame, I'd hate to see it become useable, just to become also overshadowed at the same time.

This issue doesn't only apply to PvE and gear hunters. For PvP you have already said there with be War Hero gear which you gain through ranked WZ comms and there will be another set with the same stats but look a little different which will require a rating.

For those of us who PvP and look forward to getting something for attaining a higher rank we won't be able to use that set as it won't have the extra slot for stats....

I think there are many ways to go about this, personally I was thinking you could make the higher level PvE raid boss dropped crafting mats to be BoE not BoP. That way if you could clear that content you can farm your own mats and find a crafter to make it, if you can't you could just pay for it to be done. Either way you get the slot.

My two credits, I really hope they allow some way to get a slot otherwise the top tier gear the artist spent time making won't ever be seen.

My two credits, I really hope they allow some way to get a slot otherwise the top tier gear the artist spent time making won't ever be seen.

Well, with how bad some of those sets look, that's not a bad thing.

First - thanks for the info Georg. Second, I do think that retrofitting existing OJ armor to have augment slots is a great idea, but to protect that crafting community (and I am not really a crafter myself but enjoy buying from them and gathering) may I suggest that crafters do the retro-fitting as an added part of the crafting crew skill for whoever crafts augments? I think that would keep it in the crafting community.

Whenever I am talking about retrofitting existing items with augment slots (which I consider a MUST have. No way can I ever expect that my current looks will be available as crit-crafted stuff, as it is all mission rewards, some from missions that are not even repeatable...*), I always assume that of course it would be something performed (or a consumable created) by someone of the appropriate crafting profession, and not something you turn to an NPC to do.

*This point might be moot in the case they add dropped items or regular recipes for all the orange stuff that comes as mission rewards, but until then there are a great deal of armor styles that will not be available in a version with augment slots (actually, not even non-critted at all); it would require grab the one-time-only mission reward, of which there are usually several to choose from and they might want to use it for themselves or a companion (or just choose to take commendations), reverse engineer and then be so lucky as to get the recipe for it.

Even for widely desired looks, where some crafters might sense a good profit to be had, this won't happen so easily as those very crafter would likely already be 50 and done with those missions, so they would have to level an entirely new character (and the crafting profession for it) just for being able to produce said item.

I would rather see (and am hoping) for some way to learn schematics for the current orange armor sets, so they could be crafted (and then crit crafted). Either as a purchasable item (from a vendor) or RE'ing the existing piece or armor to learn the schematic. (if they want a credit sink, buying schematics for orange armor would be a good one)

During the guild summit they explicitly said you would be able to (given the proper profession) to reverse engineer almost anything, even raid gear, with a chance for a schematic for an orange (empty) version of that item. The problem is, however, obtaining said items just for the purpose of destroying them, possibly multiple times to get the schematic. This is even worse for items that are not awarded by bringing a token from a raid boss to a vendor, most of all gear that is obtainable only once per character and only if they are of the appropriate class.

Someone here mentioned the Hydra set - this is even not such a bad situation as these items do drop and so someone can actually collect all the recipes for these and make them all with augment slots. Now for example the "Ciridium War-" line of gear - parts are from repeatable heroic quests, so doable but with a lot of effort, parts are from a commendation vendor (under a different name, for example the chest fitting the set is only available from the Corellia commendation vendor), and parts (e.g. pants) come from a class story mission, where you even have to choose between the pants for this and another set, which means you would have to take the fitting pants, reverse engineer them and pray that you get the schematic, as that is your one and only shot at it. And you'll never get the schematic for the other set anyway.

This is also bad for crafters that like to collect literally *all* the schematics for their profession that exist. For example, an armormech IA cannot ever get the schematic for, as in this example, Ciridium War-gear, as the missions are partly unavailable and those that are offer IA pieces instead.

So either literally every single orange (no exceptions whatsoever) and purple item will be available through a realistically repeatable method (as in, creating characters of the same class again and again in order to reverse-engineer class quest rewards is NOT realistic; running a flashpoint multiple times IS realistic; destroying a dozen Rakata chest pieces is NOT realistic) or Bioware will just have to introduce a way, through crafting of course, of retrofitting augment slots on existing gear.

Rather than adding augment slots to existing gear, I would like to be possible to learn orange schematics by REing social gear, and all that good looking stuff from random drops.

i.e., if it exists in the game, allow crafters to craft an orange version of it.

as it is right now the gear you can craft can already have augment slots. but most people want to wear teir gear cause its teh best. what 1.2 is allowing us to do is move the set bonus from teir gear to orange gear. so we can look anyway we want. THe nice this is they are adding augment slots to orange gear crafts. so any NEW items you craft will have a chance to have augment slots.

 

anyone right now wearing orange gear over raid gear/pvp is doing it wrong.

Or has a ****** tier bonus and wants to look awesome with his Karagga's pimp hat. Either or. Don't hate cause you have bad luck with your class's armoring drops

Rather than adding augment slots to existing gear, I would like to be possible to learn orange schematics by REing social gear, and all that good looking stuff from random drops.

 

i.e., if it exists in the game, allow crafters to craft an orange version of it.

The way they worded it on the guild summit, you will be able to do exactly that. The problem is - there is a lot of stuff that is available only once through a non-repeatable mission and/or only to certain classes (because mission rewards adapt to your class), which will leave you with a lot of item looks for which you can get half of it crit-crafted, the other half either only in form of the mission reward, without augment slot, or even not at all.

The problem i see with being able to just craft augment slots is that it would make crafting orange gear pretty useless. There are a few ways they could change the system to allow people to get the armour they like with augment slots:

1) Let crafters RE orange items from drops or vendors, and learn the schematic so they can then crit craft it.

2) Make it so when a crafter crits an item, you get the augment slot seperate to the item made. This way you can sell the augment slot seperately and attach it to any gear.

I think either idea would work and both would still give crafters an incentive to craft gear. Thoughts?

The problem i see with being able to just craft augment slots is that it would make crafting orange gear pretty useless. There are a few ways they could change the system to allow people to get the armour they like with augment slots:

 

1) Let crafters RE orange items from drops or vendors, and learn the schematic so they can then crit craft it.

 

2) Make it so when a crafter crits an item, you get the augment slot seperate to the item made. This way you can sell the augment slot seperately and attach it to any gear.

 

I think either idea would work and both would still give crafters an incentive to craft gear. Thoughts?

Why would this be needed? If there is a craftable, consumable "augmenter" item, it works out like this:

10: craft orange item

20: if crit goto 50

30: craft augmenter

40: use augmenter on item

50: profit!

I think if they are going to allow you to put augment slots on existing gear, they should make it open to everyone and as someone mentioned earlier, make it a cash sink. 500k to add an augment slot to a piece of item sounds about right. Thats a high enough price to allow crafters to have a decent market whilst being low enough that people can probably add augments to one or two treasured pieces of gear a month.

For example, I have a look in mind for my shadow. It involves the mask from balmorra which is the only mask I've seen in game that can be worn under your hood. Aiming for a tech-priest kind of look. I doubt any crafter will RE that specific reward multiple times to get recipe, and then crit, and then me be able to buy it! So, being able to add an augment would be amazing!

YEAH!!!!

Lets give another check mark on the board on something your doing that other games should have never done.

crafting gear should never equal that of Raid/ops gear.

Having an Aug slot of an item that drops from HM KP or HM EV is a horrible idea.

(For Example: People taking Synthweaving and making there bracer/belts with AUG slots then dropping that profession for Biochem while still getting to keep the items made.)

Every Rakata/Reusable item that Biochem makes requires you to be a Biochem to use the item..Thats BS. Also, we can make Implants. Columi Implants not Rakata, so we can't pay 19k and Train for a Rakata Implant to try and get Aug slot like other professions can. Your crafting system is fail.

Lets just give everybody the exact same loot and call it a day aye. Cause thats what it seems like your doing. Carebears will be carebears and they will ***** moan and groan until they get there way.

People should have to work for there stats..not just get it. I know you wanna look cool and all with some of the orange stuff and I agree with that...but having Aug slots on it is just BOGUS

Why is nobody concerned over the difference in orange gear craftable by artifice/armstech and synthweaving/armortech?

As of now Syntweaving/armortech have a lot more craftable orange gear, plus they can craft orange gear for multiple slots. Artifice/armstech can only craft orange gear for the mainhand/offhand slots.

This would mean synthweaving/armortech would become the best crafting proffesions in the game and the others would be seriously lacking on top of the other concerns mentioned by the other posters in this topic.

Hopefully Bioware has thought this through for us artificers/armstech people.

I really had hoped to be using my pvp gear from now on since it looks great. Guess I'll have to use some ugly orange armor so I can get the best stats, and not even the orange gear that I LIKE, but more like the orange gear that I FIND on the GTN.

So, this is quite limiting to customizations. I really want to be using my two separate pvp gear set appearances for both pvp and pve.

Maybe allow artificers to make augs for armors that require maybe double or triple the mats for armors would be a nice option.

Why would this be needed? If there is a craftable, consumable "augmenter" item, it works out like this:

 

10: craft orange item

20: if crit goto 50

30: craft augmenter

40: use augmenter on item

50: profit!

Being able to make "augmenter's" would make crit-crafting orange items worthless, unless the chance to crit was quite high. In the long run just making augmenter's would be cheaper, meaning people wouldn't really bother making orange items or searching for schematics, making the crew skill mostly worthless.

Being able to make "augmenter's" would make crit-crafting orange items worthless, unless the chance to crit was quite high. In the long run just making augmenter's would be cheaper, meaning people wouldn't really bother making orange items or searching for schematics, making the crew skill mostly worthless.

Only having the Augment slot on crit craft orange gear makes top tier PvP and PvE gear worthless as now to be BiS you need the Augment slot. So while yes they allow you "more choice" you really don't as you MUST have a crit crafted set.

For the most part I am anxious to see how you fixed Armstech in 1.2. What I know so far is that we WILL be able to finally RE vibroknives, which has been a sore spot with me and prevented me from making lots of cash. Also Armstech will be able to make Augments as well.

However Armstech has very few Orange items compared to Synth/Armormechs/Cybertechs.

There does need to be a way for Crafters like myself to be able to put an augment in a NON-Crafted piece of Orange gear. I myself have a wonderful Orange Sniper Rifle I got from a flashpoint that actually LOOKS like a Sniper Rifle. I would love to be able to use it again.

I think being able to let Crafters go back and Retro-Fit an augment in a NON-CRAFTED piece of Orange gear would be awesome. It must be restricted to Non Crafted items though. It also should have a further restriction to items from Drops and not mission rewards. If it isn't restricted in this manner then there will be crafters adding augments to anything they make that wasn't Crit-Crafted, making the items so common and devaluing the whole process.

Ways it can be done is creating a Money Sink by way of having the Crafters pay to learn a new skill from their trainers every so many skill levels, called Retro-Fitting. I'd say make about 3x the cost of training schematics for that level.

Also don't have it as a consumable! Make it so the Crafter and the person wanting it done meet at a Crafting Station in a group. Put a fixed price on it that the person pays into the Crafting Station and the Crafter himself gets all or some of that credit transaction. This will keep the Jackwagons from price gouging for tips in a trade window like that other game.

Or you could just do it through a trade window or whatever. It is a MMO so we should have some interaction between the Crafter and his customer base!

Furthermore you should also have the Crafters need a kit of some kind to do this. One that is purchased from a Crew Skills Vendor.

Only having the Augment slot on crit craft orange gear makes top tier PvP and PvE gear worthless as now to be BiS you need the Augment slot. So while yes they allow you "more choice" you really don't as you MUST have a crit crafted set.

Worthless implies it has no value, which is not the case. You NEED to obtain top tier PvP or PvE gear either way - an empty orange shell with an augment slot isn't of much value if you don't have the mods to go with it (and the set bonus on those top tier armorings).

It's true that there is now a step beyond the top tier gear you are used to, but what kind of orange shell you acquire is up to you. We've unlocked a large number of appearances for the system...

You will not be able to retrofit existing items with augment slots, but this is something we're discussing internally as 'we probably want to add this', so any of your feedback is worthwhile to us. If/when we offer that option, it will be added in a way that does not devalue the crafter community.

At least it is good to hear you are discussing this as something you'd like to add.

I have mentioned this in the past, and I believe that you guys should add something like this:

This in response to the upcoming changes where crit-crafted custom items would gain an Augment slot. While this is great, it would again shoe-horn people into a very limited selection of looks if they want to have 'best in slot' items for endgame and not only completely devalue their carefully amassed pieces of gear in order to look unique; but also every piece of custom gear that can be obtained through drops and from specialty/commendation vendors, as well as the new and upcoming endgame PvE/PvP gear.

Just when BioWare wanted to open up the Armoring slots and such so people could place them into their favorite gear; they again fall back to the same limitations and create the same problem of the 'clone syndrome' all over again.

The Augmentation Device could be created by certain Crew Skills (making these Crew Skills more worthwhile to get), works as a consumable and would apply a single augment slot to a piece of armor by the person that uses it.

With just this small change you not only increase the relevance of Augments by 100%, but it also provides the means for other people to put Augment slots onto their existing gear that has no augment (which is every single item dropped by random mobs and endgame gear). Lastly, it would level the field for everyone and allow people to craft Augment slots onto their favorite gear (my Jedi Battlelord set comes to mind for me personally).

The Augmentation Device would instantly increase the revenue of Augments and accompanying Crew Skills that can obtain/craft Augments and the Crew Skill(s) that could craft Augmentation Devices and allow for everyone to look how they want to look without being forced to look like a clone (again).

Also, the Augmentation Device would not diminish the overall value of crit-crafted Custom gear as people could still choose between buying the higher priced crit-crafted item or their regular counterpart (often made by the same person) and buy a separate Augmentation Device to achieve the same result.

Lastly, the mechanics for such a device are already in place as people responded that a similar item was already in Beta, but removed when the game went Live.

• And before the Synthweavers/Armormechs come along complaining that it would still diminish their precious and rare crit-crafted items; ask yourself this: What do you do with all those regular crafted items you made before you got lucky and crit-crafted one?
   
  
• So instead of asking, say, 250k for a crit-crafted piece but seeing no sales at all for your (wasted) 50k regular versions that nobody cares about; with Augmentation Device consumables you could sell both the regular versions at 50k and the crit-crafted versions at 75k (imaginary values just for the sake of comparison); resulting into a better overall net yield by being able to sell both your regular items and the crit-crafted ones.
   
  
• I know you're now going to tell me that it would be unfair regarding the number of custom gear that can drop in Flashpoints/mobs or purchased from Specialty/Commendation vendors; which would make you 'miss out' on potential customers. Not so when you can also make an Augmentation Device. That way people can be allowed the choice of purchasing new gear with an augment slot (crafted by you), or retrofit existing gear with an Augmentation Device (also crafted by you).
  

It's times like this that I'm glad I'm not a hardcore player, because I'll just continue to wear my matching, un-augmented sets in relative happiness. I don't expect to ever have gear that remotely matches what the most serious players wear, anyway, so...whatever.

That said, I'm somewhere in the camp of people who think augments slots should be addable to existing items. Maybe certain crits on Slicing missions could produce consumables that could be combined with armor pieces to give them augment slots. Seems a pretty simple solution, and it's something I'd really rather see sooner than later.

Being able to make "augmenter's" would make crit-crafting orange items worthless, unless the chance to crit was quite high. In the long run just making augmenter's would be cheaper, meaning people wouldn't really bother making orange items or searching for schematics, making the crew skill mostly worthless.

Not sure what you're on about. All of my characters and a bunch of my companions are wearing orange crafted armor. I wear them for the look. Not everybody thinks that the level 50 shoulder-spikes-of-doom sets are the best looking gear in the game.

Hell, simply swapping in new pieces probably would have been a lot easier, to be honest. Wearing a full orange set is hard work throughout the leveling process.

Why would this be needed? If there is a craftable, consumable "augmenter" item, it works out like this:

 

10: craft orange item

20: if crit goto 50

30: craft augmenter

40: use augmenter on item

50: profit!

This is, ideally, how I think it would be best. A crit craft of an orange item yields an orange with an augment slot. Allow the object/device that can make an item augmented to itself be crafted, or better yet, the result of a "crit" Slicing mission, perhaps max level. Thus, you keep those who have storage holds full of cool looking orange gear happy (like myself), crafters happy (because they can occasionally have the extra bonus of creating items that don't need the augmentation creation object, and can mark up their goods appropriately), the Slicers happy (because they can occasionally find the augmentation adding object) and can sell it. Prices will be regulated by two things: the rarity of the crit craft, and the rarity of the augmentation kit find.

Sorry for the run-on sentence.

At least it is good to hear you are discussing this as something you'd like to add.

 

I have mentioned this in the past, and I believe that you guys should add something like this:

 

 

Augmentation Device

Consumable

This device can be used to craft a single Augment slot onto an item. Consumed on use.

 

 

This in response to the upcoming changes where crit-crafted custom items would gain an Augment slot. While this is great, it would again shoe-horn people into a very limited selection of looks if they want to have 'best in slot' items for endgame and not only completely devalue their carefully amassed pieces of gear in order to look unique; but also every piece of custom gear that can be obtained through drops and from specialty/commendation vendors, as well as the new and upcoming endgame PvE/PvP gear.

 

Just when BioWare wanted to open up the Armoring slots and such so people could place them into their favorite gear; they again fall back to the same limitations and create the same problem of the 'clone syndrome' all over again.

 

The Augmentation Device could be created by certain Crew Skills (making these Crew Skills more worthwhile to get), works as a consumable and would apply a single augment slot to a piece of armor by the person that uses it.

 

With just this small change you not only increase the relevance of Augments by 100%, but it also provides the means for other people to put Augment slots onto their existing gear that has no augment (which is every single item dropped by random mobs and endgame gear). Lastly, it would level the field for everyone and allow people to craft Augment slots onto their favorite gear (my Jedi Battlelord set comes to mind for me personally).

 

The Augmentation Device would instantly increase the revenue of Augments and accompanying Crew Skills that can obtain/craft Augments and the Crew Skill(s) that could craft Augmentation Devices and allow for everyone to look how they want to look without being forced to look like a clone (again).

 

Also, the Augmentation Device would not diminish the overall value of crit-crafted Custom gear as people could still choose between buying the higher priced crit-crafted item or their regular counterpart (often made by the same person) and buy a separate Augmentation Device to achieve the same result.

 

Lastly, the mechanics for such a device are already in place as people responded that a similar item was already in Beta, but removed when the game went Live.

 

• And before the Synthweavers/Armormechs come along complaining that it would still diminish their precious and rare crit-crafted items; ask yourself this: What do you do with all those regular crafted items you made before you got lucky and crit-crafted one?
   
  
• So instead of asking, say, 250k for a crit-crafted piece but seeing no sales at all for your (wasted) 50k regular versions that nobody cares about; with Augmentation Device consumables you could sell both the regular versions at 50k and the crit-crafted versions at 75k (imaginary values just for the sake of comparison); resulting into a better overall net yield by being able to sell both your regular items and the crit-crafted ones.
   
  
• I know you're now going to tell me that it would be unfair regarding the number of custom gear that can drop in Flashpoints/mobs or purchased from Specialty/Commendation vendors; which would make you 'miss out' on potential customers. Not so when you can also make an Augmentation Device. That way people can be allowed the choice of purchasing new gear with an augment slot (crafted by you), or retrofit existing gear with an Augmentation Device (also crafted by you).
  

 

This was pretty much exactly what I was going to post. You can't add a vendor to add augment slot to existing, but almost every player I know is hoarding orange gear for looks, some have them modded a bit. It would be absolutley brutal to have to hunt down all these sets again. And what would you do about oranges that drop from epic boxes?

The best solution is for crafters to make an augment consumable type item that you can use to augment existing gear. Think this absolutely need to get implemented as asap after 1.2

This was pretty much exactly what I was going to post. You can't add a vendor to add augment slot to existing, but almost every player I know is hoarding orange gear for looks, some have them modded a bit. It would be absolutley brutal to have to hunt down all these sets again. And what would you do about oranges that drop from epic boxes?

I'm basically in the situation you describe. I have some orange items waiting to be used when 1.2 hits. I dont care about remodding everything.

I would be fine with buying those items again from crafters.

But how do crafters learn the recipes for those items?

One set is the Jedi Battlelord, which - to my knowledge - is a random world drop. What about the orange social gear? Normal quest rewards?

Just making it possible that the existing orange craftbales can crit is simply not enough. We're then in the same situation as today (1-2 sets to wear, everyone looks the same).

We need an "easy" way to get the schemantics for the rarer orange items. Maybe a 100% chance to learn the recipe when REing an orange item?