I'm getting mixed signals from people regarding the current state of crafting and gearing.

When I last played (4-5 years ago) I levelled all my crew skills to max across multiple toons because A.) I could sell mats on the GTN for a pretty credit; and B.) time spent levelling crafting was an alternative way to get to a decent gear level for all but the hardest content without being forced to do group content. Through crafting I could ear, implant, armor, mods, enhancements, and augments -- absolutely everything needed to have top-tier gear -- all through entirely solo'd content. Granted, there was "better" gear considered BiS but this BiS gear was only needed to get to the tip-top maximum possible needed dps/hps for nightmare mode ops.

Some people are telling me it's essentially the same: run through weeklies, dailies, and heroic missions, along with missions and nodes for gathering (including the wealthy yield mission drops), and I could craft purple quality top-tier (can't remember what the grade was at the time) gear, without ever running a single operation or (group) flashpoint.

Others are telling me that crafting currently is essentially useless, because 306 gear -- the current top-tier -- is all totally attainable simply by playing the game and in fairly short order loot crates from dailies and weeklies as well as group flashpoints (apparently hammer station farming is a thing right now?) will result in all of that gear coming from drops. Furthermore, it appears that certain materials required for crafting 306-grade purple pieces can only come from certain group content, and since trying to farm those mats would result in a full set of 306-grade gear from drops anyway, there was no point in farming for those mats for the purpose of crafting.

I intend to get all my crew skills up to 700 anyway simply because I like to complete things, not unlike my desire to max out reputation on planets, etc. But it would be rather disappointing to me to find that having all my crew skills at 700 -- after investing the time and money to get there -- would be essentially useless. I currently have thousands of grade 11 purple slicing mats just from making a regular habit of grabbing slicing nodes as i come across them on onderon and meksha as well as keeping orange missions on CD. Way back when, I would keep all my alts geared as well as sell various item purple inserts on the GTN since I could have companions, all at affection 50, crafting them round the clock. Now it sounds like maybe that's useless as well....

Can anyone give me any reassurance about what used to be a favorite activity of mine across all my toons? Is crafting basically only good these days for biochem reusables and thats about it? Am I really forced to run group content and in doing so will find that drops render crafting useless?

The analysis you present is more or less correct. As an example of the kind of mess end-game crafting is in, consider that the most basic "grade 11" craftable gear, the 268-rated "green trash", requires blue materials that drop from MM Flashpoints and all modes of Operations.

Advancing up the tiers of crafting requires you to craft and "deconstruct" (the new name for RE) gear at your highest tier you currently know in order for a chance of getting the next tier up (normally 4-8 rating points higher(1)). The chance goes down as you go up the tiers(2), and the cost in materials goes up.

((cynical))((sarcastic))

But take heart. No matter how bad you think it is now, when 6.0 was released, it was *worse*.

((/sarcastic))((/cynical))

I'm only partially kidding there. It really was worse, but when they made it less bad, they only fixed some of the problems, and not completely either.

(1) 268 -> 274 -> 278 -> 286 at which point I gave up because crafting 286s requires mats only available from higher-tier guild conquest boxes.

(2) 4.X and 5.X top-tier crafting RE chances were often 100% because the schematics involved exotic materials that were, for example, only available from high-end group content. No such luck in 6.X.

The analysis you present is more or less correct. As an example of the kind of mess end-game crafting is in, consider that the most basic "grade 11" craftable gear, the 268-rated "green trash", requires blue materials that drop from MM Flashpoints and all modes of Operations.

 

Advancing up the tiers of crafting requires you to craft and "deconstruct" (the new name for RE) gear at your highest tier you currently know in order for a chance of getting the next tier up (normally 4-8 rating points higher(1)). The chance goes down as you go up the tiers(2), and the cost in materials goes up.

 

((cynical))((sarcastic))

But take heart. No matter how bad you think it is now, when 6.0 was released, it was *worse*.

((/sarcastic))((/cynical))

 

I'm only partially kidding there. It really was worse, but when they made it less bad, they only fixed some of the problems, and not completely either.

 

(1) 268 -> 274 -> 278 -> 286 at which point I gave up because crafting 286s requires mats only available from higher-tier guild conquest boxes.

 

(2) 4.X and 5.X top-tier crafting RE chances were often 100% because the schematics involved exotic materials that were, for example, only available from high-end group content. No such luck in 6.X.

Well I'm confused and disheartened. I would love to know the devs' design intent. Was it truly that they just didn't want people crafting? I've never ever understood why they wanted to force people into group content in order to craft. Maybe it's because they know people would gear up their alts with crafted items (as I did) and not run group content on those toons? Maybe they're just focusing on only the people complaining about PUGs not forming quickly so they want to force more people to play group content? I mean that only makes so much sense because it seems the state of group finder activity hasn't changed much, especially since everyone just runs the same flashpoint over and over (hammer station, apparently) to maximize reward efficiency, and so if I auto-queue to Esseles, etc I'm screwed.

Also, I personally am not hindered by having to work for it. I don't care if it takes 100+ REs to get to the purple schematic. I'll put in the time and money. That's how it used to be: credit sinks force credit farming which is most efficiently done by running dailies. I also actually used to enjoy chest farming on Ilum; I had a path all worked out so that the loop finished just as the first chest was respawning. Pretty much I enjoy every/any aspect of the game that let's me do what I'm trying to do without the forced group content.

From the sounds of how crafting got further screwed with 6.0, I guess there's not much hope for improvement with 6.1?

From the sounds of how crafting got further screwed with 6.0, I guess there's not much hope for improvement with 6.1?

I'm not willing to say that there's *no* hope, but "not much" sounds about right.

Crafting of top tier 306 mods (armorings, mods, enhancements, earpieces, implants) is totally worthless. You can completely outfit your character with 306 level items just by doing normal PvE such as Onderon and Mek-sha dailies, flashpoints, etc. Meanwhile the crafted versions of these items are very expensive to make.

On the other hand crafting is still useful to make Mk-11 augment slots and augments. (Although, for most people, Mk-10s are close enough). There's also new dye modules (dark blue/gray; gray/dark blue) and a new colour crystal.

There is also a new Biochem reusable, I think, but I haven't done the DC'ing to get the schematic.

I have yet to check to see if any new crafted armors are good looking enough to craft for an outfit.

I basically only craft stuff for my own use - augments, dyes, med-packs, color crystals, good looking or interesting armor, etc. I don't craft in order to sell on the GTN, so I have no knowledge of what might be good for that.

Can anyone give me any reassurance about what used to be a favorite activity of mine across all my toons? Is crafting basically only good these days for biochem reusables and thats about it? Am I really forced to run group content and in doing so will find that drops render crafting useless?

I used to do three things. PVP, Crafting, and Space-Barbie. They have destroyed two of the three. I stopped logging in because Space-Barbie simply isn't a good enough reason to play SWTOR, for me, anyway.

Good luck in finding fulfillment and enjoyment with "crafting." I'm confident you won't, though.

I used to do three things. PVP, Crafting, and Space-Barbie. They have destroyed two of the three. I stopped logging in because Space-Barbie simply isn't a good enough reason to play SWTOR, for me, anyway.

 

Good luck in finding fulfillment and enjoyment with "crafting." I'm confident you won't, though.

Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by space barbie? do you mean cosmetic-related stuff?

Forgive my ignorance, but what do you mean by space barbie? do you mean cosmetic-related stuff?

In essence, it's playing "dress-up" with your characters' outfits, and showing off the result. I call it Fashion Wars: the Old Catwalk.

Note: it can also include decorating strongholds.

In essence, it's playing "dress-up" with your characters' outfits, and showing off the result. I call it Fashion Wars: the Old Catwalk.

 

Note: it can also include decorating strongholds.

Yeah honestly I've never understood the desire of people in this game or any game for that matter to "show off" to other people. I get certain outfits because I like seeing them when watching cut scenes. I get certain vehicles because it's fun to change things up riding around planets for hours on end. But to show off for the express purpose of other people seeing them? That doesn't make sense to me.

Yeah honestly I've never understood the desire of people in this game or any game for that matter to "show off" to other people. I get certain outfits because I like seeing them when watching cut scenes. I get certain vehicles because it's fun to change things up riding around planets for hours on end. But to show off for the express purpose of other people seeing them? That doesn't make sense to me.

You might not understand why others enjoy outfitting their characters, but you need to look no further than your own signature to perhaps understand why some do it.

In essence, it's playing "dress-up" with your characters' outfits, and showing off the result. I call it Fashion Wars: the Old Catwalk.

 

Note: it can also include decorating strongholds.

Yeah this is a decent sum of it. ^

It's just fun manipulating pixels around a toons body for different unique outfits. It's sort of like creating art, if I am real about it. The toons body is a blank canvas, and the different outfit pieces are like paints.

state of crafting

hahahahahahaha [cries]

state of gearing

Not too bad from a PvE perspective.

Well I'm confused and disheartened. I would love to know the devs' design intent.

So are most of us, equally we would also like to know the developers design intent.

Essentially Grade 11 crafting = Augment kits / Augments / Biochem stuff / War Supplies and Dark Projects (assuming conquest interests you... or credits). There isn't really anything interesting added with 6.0 in terms of crafting schematics, what there is requires an insane amount of materials (even though it's been adjusted). In terms of most things, they require conquest (Solid Resource Matrix) or group content materials.

Oh and everybody enjoys crafting the limited selection of dyes, so if you want to turn a profit, just sell the materials (it's quicker).

Your assumptions are basically correct, BioWare pretty much made crafting useless in 6.0.

It's not useless cause you will still be able to craft augments. You can also craft exclusive tacticals if you get the recipes.

The idea that crafting is useless is ridiculous. Augments are a huge deal and sell for a lot.

But gear itself is not worth crafting to use. Only to disassemble the mats.

I think the reason why is cause you would bypass the vertical progression. So, this is fine. After being ilvl (306) all gear is legacy wide so you will have no problem gearing all your toons.

Unlike what the above poster says, most people are actually fine with the new gearing system. Only raiders that want to feel special aren't.

The only thing "wrong" with crafting is that the required materials for crafting things skyrocketed. It's been reduced since launch to a more acceptable state, but it's still a bit annoying. But, i guess it stimulated the mats market.

I subbed the day the game launched in 2011.

I used to grind dailies for credits, wander to gather mats & craft. I'd occasionally fill an empty DPS slot for a guild OP, maybe run a guild FP for gear / special mats. Bioware killed crafting for me when they changed everything to require components, I stopped playing shortly after 4.0 released. Came back for 60 days after 5.0, left again.

Came back again a few days ago (as of this thread). The new gear system is confusing, and amplifiers part of gear is more asinine than having to craft components to craft stuff. The prices for everything at the vendors & on GTN is beyond obscene. I'm now just leveling toons to watch reruns of the movies, and make different choices until sub runs out, then gone again. I dont like any of the new content.

I subbed the day the game launched in 2011.

 

I used to grind dailies for credits, wander to gather mats & craft. I'd occasionally fill an empty DPS slot for a guild OP, maybe run a guild FP for gear / special mats. Bioware killed crafting for me when they changed everything to require components, I stopped playing shortly after 4.0 released. Came back for 60 days after 5.0, left again.

 

Came back again a few days ago (as of this thread). The new gear system is confusing, and amplifiers part of gear is more asinine than having to craft components to craft stuff. The prices for everything at the vendors & on GTN is beyond obscene. I'm now just leveling toons to watch reruns of the movies, and make different choices until sub runs out, then gone again. I dont like any of the new content.

It's very tireing to read such posts where you admit not even giving the game a chance.

The gearing is not confusing. I can tell you WoW is much worse, for example.

Gearing here is simple: do what you want, get gear drops. You will get upgrades. Equip upgrades until you have 306 gear level. Dissasemble whatever isnt an upgrade or pass it to your alts for bypassing this part of the gearing.

Use tech fragments to buy tactical and set bonus.

You are basically done there. Now if you want to maximise, you get augments and the best amps for your spec.

Is this really that confusing?

It's very tireing to read such posts where you admit not even giving the game a chance.

The gearing is not confusing. I can tell you WoW is much worse, for example.

 

Gearing here is simple: do what you want, get gear drops. You will get upgrades. Equip upgrades until you have 306 gear level. Dissasemble whatever isnt an upgrade or pass it to your alts for bypassing this part of the gearing.

Use tech fragments to buy tactical and set bonus.

 

You are basically done there. Now if you want to maximise, you get augments and the best amps for your spec.

Is this really that confusing?

It's tiring reading such posts. ^

You realize fun is subjective, right? The dude said he found it NOT fun. Games should be fun, if he found activities no longer available he once enjoyed and now hates the new gearing/amps etc., that's his right.

It's tiring seeing people think others are less intelligent or lesser gamers just because they hate the new SWTOR gearing system and/or stories, etc. versus those who find this new game enjoyable.

It's fine to like the new gearing system, and it's fine to dislike it. No one isn't missing anything or "not getting it." It sucks for many people end of story.

I guess I'll say it here too...

Crafting right now is absolutely horrendous. Is more detail really required? The costs are insane, the mat requirements are insane, the list goes on.

As far as the system goes I have 3 problems: amplifiers (they're stupid, make it so you can choose which one, or cut the cost of rolling it to something tiny), randomness in set gathering and tacticals (have they even released the FD CD reducing guardian one?), and sheer numbers of mods and enh avaliable without any way to swap the worthless ones for useful ones.

My biggest peeve is the lack of 75 endgame. I elaborated on how this was lazy, incompetent, and frankly insulting to loyal subscribers elsewhere, probably multiple times, so i'm going to leave it there. If they can't be bothered to raise content or make enough new content, they shouldn't be bothered to raise the level cap in the first place.

Adding my $0.02. As a long-time crafter (for a couple years, I did nothing but craft -- no other content at all), I can say that I'm happy to see crafting is back in focus. It's probably my single favorite thing in the game when it's viable (and it has been gutted majorly over the years). But for crafting to be successful and viable as a genuine gameplay alternative activity -- one that can keep players occupied for long periods of time, it needs three basic things:

1. Crafting cannot require any other advanced gameplay (e.g. PvP, Ops, etc.) to be viable - crafters need to be able to obtain mats by doing "regular" game activities, GTN, trading, etc.
   
2. Crafting must otherwise require substantial non-gameplay time and resources, making it truly an "alternative" - crafting as a gameplay alternative (I recognize for some like me it is the gameplay) has to require time and resources that someone dedicated to Ops, ranked PvP, HM FPs, etc. wouldn't/couldn't have the time to do. Back in the day, for example, this would require hours and hours of RE'ing for schematics (even before the 60% RNG guarantee). It was painful, but when you got a the rare purple schematic, it was golden. It also requires all the crafting skills on one account (needing multiple toons). No one doing hard core activities has that kind of time, or at least they have to make some choices. Crafting as a concurrent "side-activity" to hardcore play is the death of crafting--it must be an alternative.
   
3. Crafting must be able to offer the "best," i.e. highly-desirable, items in the game - again, one of the things that kills crafters is when our items aren't desirable. This doesn't per see mean BiS (though in the new horizontal system it does mean highest-tier), but crafted items have to be desirable by the players who don't have the time (see point #2) to craft. If not, again, it may as well not be in game.
   

 

There are other nice-to-have things as well (for example, restoring gear value to leveling) but the three above are necessary conditions without which will make crafting nothing more than an annoying side activity....

This is what I said about crafting last June following some 6.0 announcements. I was hopeful so long as it was thought out well--it wasn't. As a long-time crafter, I offered the "necessary" conditions for making crafting viable as a game within the game. Some may quibble with point #2, but they key for crafting as a mini-game is that it has to be an "alternative" to other gaming options.

For example, in earlier metas a ranked PvPer or NiM ops player wouldn't craft because the time required meant that they had to make a choice. This created a supply scarcity which allows crafting to be viable as a mini game (assuming the 3rd condition above is met as well). Such scarcity creates an ideal market--those who want great gear can get it by playing toughest content OR they can grind easier content OR they can buy it from crafters. Market isn't flooded with items under cost, and crafters can't sell at too high a price or else ppl will find alternatives. It all works with some fine-tuning here and there.

But if you must play a bunch of different content in order to craft items--and said alternative contents offers a direct path to the the same crafted items--then [insert obvious conclusion here].

With 6.0, there is really no reason at all to invest in crafting as anything more than an annoying way to gear up your own toons. But the fix for this is easy:

1. For RE'ing for schematics, remove the requirement for mats coming from game content.
   
2. Restore the green<blue<purple hierarchy to mats and allows purples and blues to be obtained from missions; greens from gathering and missions. Do this by keeping the bonded attachments mats requirements limited to greens and blues. If you want to add a gate, make purple mats (obtainable from mission crits) required for bonded attachments for gold tier.
   
3. Purples should be rare (crits), and only required for crafting the purple tier items (tier immediately under BiS) (or if needed purple attachments for gold tier).
   
4. For RE: Green --> blue schematic should remain 60% chance. Blue --> Purple should drop to 20%. Purple --> Gold should be 10% chance (I'd argue for lower, but ppl may not like that).
   
5. Crafting of gold tier item should require some amount of end-game/content-generated component(s). Again, encourages ppl to play that content and sell the items on GTN to willing crafters.
   

I know none of this will happen, but I felt like writing it anyway....

With the amount of jawa scrap you can get from deconstructing dropped gear now, I find that crafting lower tier cosmetic items has become less of a chore (I was never a for-profit crafter, I'd craft for myself and friends and some guildies, and might sell off crits to break even), but that's the most positive thing I can think to say about this mess.

Any hope I might've had of a reasonable adjustment to grade 11 crafting died when I read the 6.0.2 patch notes. Some people called it a step in the right direction, but to me the minor tweaks they came up with proved that BW does not consider 6.X crafting to be inherently broken, and so there's no reason to believe that they will make the sweeping changes required to make it a reasonable part of the game again.

Gonna make my reply short and sweet....

if you expected to craft you own gear... forget it.

put another way, it'd take you more than a years worth of conquest mats to craft a single set of 306 gear for a single character.... probably more considering all the deconstruction failures to get the next tier schematic.

you were told correctly, the costs are too high (multiple weeks worth of conquest mats from a single character to make 1 piece of sub max gear, vs running VM / MM flashpoints, and having better stuff rain from the bosses.

we're back to the only use of crafting being augments, consumable/reusables, selling off materials.... all at top tier, and the odd appearance item.

It's not useless cause you will still be able to craft augments. You can also craft exclusive tacticals if you get the recipes.

I didn't say it was entirely useless.

Your assumptions are basically correct, BioWare pretty much made crafting useless in 6.0.

Also forgot about the tacticals, because they're also something not really worth investing time or effort into, in my opinion. (not when you can get decent enough ones from running content). On the subject of augments, I've normally crafted my own, but with the combination of materials required and the horrible reverse engineering chances (as well as the cost) I decided it was easier to simply give my materials to another crafter in exchange for the Solid Resource Matrix and Legendary Embers and let him profit from the crits when he crafts those items. I take no issue with giving another crafter a boost.

After just rejoining the game and going through this process I agree with everything stated in this thread. Without going into too much detail, if you want to have crafting and playing the GTN as a major factor in how you spend your time, you technically can, but it might not be that beneficial for the character you are leveling. Gear comes so fast from just doing content though, you will out-gear your crafting ilvl super fast. So basically you are just crafting to speed gear alts or sell to other people who want to speed gear their alts.

If you are crafting gear slots, not augments or consumables etc. it can help in certain circumstances.

1. you can have 268 when you begin onsalught (as opposed the the free stuff at the end).

2. you can craft gear for new alts you level in the future.

3. you can craft gear for spec changes.

4. there is a market for all of this stuff on the GTN, buts its never going to be "in demand" stuff. Just start set stuff.

Crafting for characters and companions that were leveling was fun and a ready market. With stat boosts and the rapid pace of leveling and gear item leveling rating of companions no longer a factor, those markets vanished. With the advent of the Cartel Market, crafting gear for cosmetic purposes also disappeared.

I am not sympathetic to players that want access to all the highest level mats and gear while avoiding group content in an mmo. There are plenty of games, rpg and otherwise, that focus on solo play and achievements.

MMOs in which there are leveling ladders, both for character and crafting skills, are going the way of the dinosaur. I don't know of any AAA mmo titles even rumored to be in development, not for US release anyways. The WoW model mmo requires too large an investment and there are not enough players who have the patience and willingness to invest the time and money to justify the risk. There are now a wide selection of Battle royals, arcade games, and Rpgs that dominate the video game market.

Complaining that an mmo doesn't meet your requirements isn't going to leverage any developer. They already know they can't.

I only craft augments and mk-11 kits. It saves me tons of money -- and if i ever decide I need more money, I can sell them on the GTN.

I wouldn't bother crafting any of the new stuff though.