Lets talk about... Crew Skills

To start, i find it annoying that the archeaology nodes in Yavin4 have not yet been “fixed”. Archeaology “farm” of grade11 mats is really a pain when compared to all other gathering skills. There is several ways this could have been “fixed” or at least improved, but nothing has changed for 4 months, and it should be quite simple, imo.

The light side/dark side choices in Diplomacy, were funny at game release, but now it is quite annoying, always losing max, getting max, losing max, getting max, etc. No point in continue with it.

All mission skills need re-work. The 4 loot options, normal, abundant, bountifull and rich, once we unlcok them by getting the needed skill, they should always be avaiable. I'm tired of jumping from SH to SH for reload, to try get rich loot version.

Also, some cases like Diplomacy grade 2, highest is abundant, and Underworld Trading grade3 metals highest is bountifull, and there are more cases. This has been like this since game release, and it shouldnt be so hard to fix.

Some purple mats are alot harder to get then others, depending on the grade, because the mission skills are not well balanced.

Companion bonuses: was fun, even interesting at game release, but it sucks that we cant chose the bonus that we want. It is more like beeing forced to chose some skills depending on your class.

We should be given some ammount of points, to spend on our companions, so we can chose crit or efficiency. Some times we cant even use the companion that we want, because is working, due to the better bonuses. If we could chose what companion to give the bonuses, we would be able to use the companion that we want, and put to work the ones we use less.

Look for example, that some classes got better companions bonuses then others. Also, some crew skills got better companion bonuses then others. All togeder, can be considered unbalanced or even unfair.

Biochem purples now are not reusable, but can be sold to other players. Good for one side, bad for another.

Imo, the best could be to have both versions, one to sell to other players, and another BoP reusable.

To finish (for now), the ship droid, even with the +2 crit from the armor piece, doesnt seem to crit more often then any other companion, so makes me wonder if it is actualy working as intended.

To start, i find it annoying that the archeaology nodes in Yavin4 have not yet been “fixed”. Archeaology “farm” of grade11 mats is really a pain when compared to all other gathering skills. There is several ways this could have been “fixed” or at least improved, but nothing has changed for 4 months, and it should be quite simple, imo.

The reality is that this is a player problem not a system problem. It lies in that if enough players actively farming do not gather the color crystal nodes then eventually there will be nothing but color crystal nodes. But there was a change in Arch - grade 11 wealthy missions yield ZERO color crystals.

The light side/dark side choices in Diplomacy, were funny at game release, but now it is quite annoying, always losing max, getting max, losing max, getting max, etc. No point in continue with it.

OTOH there is little point to maintaining max LS/DS alignment because there are so few "aligned" items. Unless one actively uses the title associated with the level 5 alignments, there is no reason to worry about it.

All mission skills need re-work. The 4 loot options, normal, abundant, bountifull and rich, once we unlcok them by getting the needed skill, they should always be avaiable. I'm tired of jumping from SH to SH for reload, to try get rich loot version.

Best ya gonna get. Get used to it.

Also, some cases like Diplomacy grade 2, highest is abundant, and Underworld Trading grade3 metals highest is bountifull, and there are more cases. This has been like this since game release, and it shouldnt be so hard to fix.

 

Some purple mats are alot harder to get then others, depending on the grade, because the mission skills are not well balanced.

This I will agree with you on. It was a neat quirk that one side had an advantage over the other, but the "neat" has worn off.

Companion bonuses: was fun, even interesting at game release, but it sucks that we cant chose the bonus that we want. It is more like beeing forced to chose some skills depending on your class.

We should be given some ammount of points, to spend on our companions, so we can chose crit or efficiency. Some times we cant even use the companion that we want, because is working, due to the better bonuses. If we could chose what companion to give the bonuses, we would be able to use the companion that we want, and put to work the ones we use less.

Look for example, that some classes got better companions bonuses then others. Also, some crew skills got better companion bonuses then others. All togeder, can be considered unbalanced or even unfair.

Each class - based on companion bonuses - have crew skills that they are "best" at. Yes, from a purely game mechanical standpoint the situation is less than ideal. But this is not a purely game mechanical issue, there is companion background and backstory to consider. BW has helped this situation with the ship droid sensors and the two new companions have generic bonuses. My feeling is that BW would be more likely to abandon the bonuses altogether than grant "points to be distributed."

Biochem purples now are not reusable, but can be sold to other players. Good for one side, bad for another.

Imo, the best could be to have both versions, one to sell to other players, and another BoP reusable.

TOTALLY disagree. Biochem is now a money making crafting skill - as it should be - rather than a money saving crafting skill.

To finish (for now), the ship droid, even with the +2 crit from the armor piece, doesnt seem to crit more often then any other companion, so makes me wonder if it is actualy working as intended.

The reality is that this is a player problem not a system problem. It lies in that if enough players actively farming do not gather the color crystal nodes then eventually there will be nothing but color crystal nodes. But there was a change in Arch - grade 11 wealthy missions yield ZERO color crystals.

I dont agree. When i do my weeklys in Yavin4 with any of my 2 archeaologists, on both spawn areas, before the quests i do a full run to clear all nodes, then on second run i kill the moobs for the quests and gather the new nodes. And i do this at very late (or very soon) hours, most of the time there is no one else gathering those nodes.

And the issue still remains, even if a little lower, but it is still there.

2 main reasons are:

-- even if all the 5 nodes spawn at exactly same rate, you get 60% color crystals, 20% artifacts, and 20% russan.

-- color crystals not only spawn more, but they are (alot) less usefull. higher spawn for the lower utility items.

But then, look at your own words, if it was only the players fault for not gathering the color crystals, because consider them useless, then isnt that alone a systems problem, for giving useless mats shared spawn with more needed mats?

Scavenging and Bioanalisys, have only 2 diferent gather mats on only 1 type of node. Archeaology got 5 mats in 5 diferent nodes, and the ones less needed are the ones that spawn more.

OTOH there is little point to maintaining max LS/DS alignment because there are so few "aligned" items. Unless one actively uses the title associated with the level 5 alignments, there is no reason to worry about it.

It is a very simple issue, and one simple reason should be enough to just turn it on. Just because there is 0 reasons to have it, and 1 simple reason not to have it.

Best ya gonna get. Get used to it.

Is that your best answer?

Each class - based on companion bonuses - have crew skills that they are "best" at. Yes, from a purely game mechanical standpoint the situation is less than ideal. But this is not a purely game mechanical issue, there is companion background and backstory to consider. BW has helped this situation with the ship droid sensors and the two new companions have generic bonuses. My feeling is that BW would be more likely to abandon the bonuses altogether than grant "points to be distributed."

I know about the companions stories, but turns out that classes are not balanced. If they want to keep the bonuses related to the companion stories, then at least make it more balanced. BH for example, has crappy bonuses, for missions or crafting.

I think players should be able to chose some things, so we are not forced to play with one companion that we dont like, because the one we like has better bonus so is allways working.

Example, if i have slicing, and one companion with +2 crit on slicing, then that companion will always be working, 24/7, and wil never be my choice for out world.

I have several ship droids with +2 crit to various skills and I DO notice a difference.

Funny, i dont, on any of my chars, i dont see them criting more. I think HK crits more...

I dont agree. When i do my weeklys in Yavin4 with any of my 2 archeaologists, on both spawn areas, before the quests i do a full run to clear all nodes, then on second run i kill the moobs for the quests and gather the new nodes. And i do this at very late (or very soon) hours, most of the time there is no one else gathering those nodes.

And the issue still remains, even if a little lower, but it is still there.

2 main reasons are:

-- even if all the 5 nodes spawn at exactly same rate, you get 60% color crystals, 20% artifacts, and 20% russan.

-- color crystals not only spawn more, but they are (alot) less usefull. higher spawn for the lower utility items.

 

But then, look at your own words, if it was only the players fault for not gathering the color crystals, because consider them useless, then isnt that alone a systems problem, for giving useless mats shared spawn with more needed mats?

 

Scavenging and Bioanalisys, have only 2 diferent gather mats on only 1 type of node. Archeaology got 5 mats in 5 diferent nodes, and the ones less needed are the ones that spawn more.

Useful is in the eye of the beholder -- I go through more color crystals than fragments / power crystals because the items made with them sell faster and for more credits. I pay less per color crystal, but I buy many more than I do of any other mat.

Is that your best answer?

 

I know about the companions stories, but turns out that classes are not balanced. If they want to keep the bonuses related to the companion stories, then at least make it more balanced. BH for example, has crappy bonuses, for missions or crafting.

I think players should be able to chose some things, so we are not forced to play with one companion that we dont like, because the one we like has better bonus so is allways working.

Example, if i have slicing, and one companion with +2 crit on slicing, then that companion will always be working, 24/7, and wil never be my choice for out world.

He's right. There may be parts of the system that are clunky or asymmetrical, but it is highly unlikely that we will see changes -- and based on SoR quality control, this is probably a good thing. Ugly and awkward the system may be, but work it does, so appreciate that at least.

Funny, i dont, on any of my chars, i dont see them criting more. I think HK crits more...

 

Just curious -- what is your affection with HK? All companions get +1 crit / 2000 affection, and many people don't realize that you can get affection with the Ship Droid (with gifts -- no dialog), so if you didn't max your Ship Droid affection (10K), you are missing out on +5 to crits.

Max affection with all my companions, on all my high level chars, and the ship droid does not crit more on any, with the armor piece.

and the ship droid does not crit more on any, with the armor piece.

Have you in fact tracked data regarding that statement or is it just a "feeling"?

Because I have in fact tracked data on crafting and missions in the past and the ship droid with a crit bonus is definitely better than a companion without.

Have you in fact tracked data regarding that statement or is it just a "feeling"?

 

Because I have in fact tracked data on crafting and missions in the past and the ship droid with a crit bonus is definitely better than a companion without.

^^This.

If your companions are maxed, the +2 sensor means that (on average) the Droid would crit twice more every 100 tries. Depending on what you are crafting or what mission you are running, the base try might be 10% (orange) or 15%(others) -- usually at max skill level 15%, so with +5 for affection, the difference is between 20 and 22 crits per hundred. It takes a lot of runs (hundreds) to get high confidence that the returns are at the theoretical rates, and determining whether or not the relative difference between two companions is harder than just seeing who crits more.

Also, if you have the Legacy of Crafting, you should have a +3 to both companions for crafting. The higher the base percentages (23 and 25), the harder it is to detect a +2 difference.

I have to agree with the OP in general. SWtOR has the worst crafting system of any game I have played, but becuase the stuff I can make is so important I have gritted my teeth and maxed it out - unlike any other game I have played.

The gathering missions are just silly. I gotta play roulette every time I ned some grade five-and-a-half material? Come on! Just the fact that some tiers have a sub tier is frustrating enough but some recipes call for materials from other tiers. And then the planets have sub-tier nodes... And why is the tier selection menu based on levels?

I also agree with the companion skills, why can't I have some choices or control?

And the flat percentages for Re-engineering is just plain frustrating as well. Can't these skills be increased for lower tiers? How many green items have I trashed over the YEARs... I just want the Redoubt upgrade!

It's a shame that crafting has to be so poorly executed.

/rant off

I have to agree with the OP in general. SWtOR has the worst crafting system of any game I have played, but becuase the stuff I can make is so important I have gritted my teeth and maxed it out - unlike any other game I have played.

 

The gathering missions are just silly. I gotta play roulette every time I ned some grade five-and-a-half material? Come on! Just the fact that some tiers have a sub tier is frustrating enough but some recipes call for materials from other tiers. And then the planets have sub-tier nodes... And why is the tier selection menu based on levels?

 

I also agree with the companion skills, why can't I have some choices or control?

 

And the flat percentages for Re-engineering is just plain frustrating as well. Can't these skills be increased for lower tiers? How many green items have I trashed over the YEARs... I just want the Redoubt upgrade!

 

It's a shame that crafting has to be so poorly executed.

 

/rant off

Compared to the abomination that the new WoW crafting system is, swtor is far, far ahead. I'm in no way suggesting you don't have a legitimate beef, just that it's not nearly as bad as it could be.

Can things be improved? Absolutely! What's the point of armstech or armormech these days outside of barrels and augments? Almost all of the patterns are completely useless outside of the possible argument that it makes gearing companions easier (although the advent of the cartel market and collections system makes this argument almost invalid).

The truth is, the only truly viable crew skills these days are cybertech, biochem, slicing and artifice for enhancements and possibly due to the addition of top end relics, dyes, and color crystals.

Armstech, sythweaving, and armormech are basically only useful for augments. And that's sad.

Reverse engineering... my wife was all up in arms about this at first, mostly due to all the prefixes involved until I sat her down and drew it out on paper. I'll concede that sometimes RNG is a spiteful ******. I kinda hope something happens to augment this percentage, but unless you're trying to RE artifact gear for specific affixes for some reason, the only real bear is the time involved as materials are fairly abundant. And again, the crafting skills most affected by this are fairly useless these days.

Gathering missions... well I'm not sure what to say there. On the one hand, the rates of return are random at best, cruel at worst. But it's not like you're really taking time out of your overall play session to gather these mats in this manner. I'm not convinced much needs to be done here, but there are exceptions by way of some of the rates of return for artifact quality materials. I think they removed the possibility of artifact materials on anything but rich or wealthy missions, which was a huge disservice to the player IMO.

That said, if you're relying on rich missions to pop up in order to get your artifact materials, you're doing it wrong. Gathering mission consumables return these materials even without a critical success. Yeah, you get beans if they fail, but if your sending companions without max affection to gather artifact materials, again, you're doing it wrong.

Tl;dr

Crafting and gathering isn't as bad as it seems if you leverage all the available options. Sure, it can use some polish and maybe some cut and paste, but it's far from broken.

I think they removed the possibility of artifact materials on anything but rich or wealthy missions, which was a huge disservice to the player IMO.

Normally, you can get from rich and bountifull, and ofc, wealthy. But then, like i mentioned above, some mission skills at some grades, dont even have rich version, cases of underworld trading grade 3 metal, higher is bountifull, or diplomacy grade 2, higher is abundant. There are more cases.

Then you have cases of grade 5 with 2 diferent rich missions.

Or investigation grade 2 or grade 4, both have 2 rich versions.

Most cases grade 6 higher is abundant too.

In the end, there is big unbalance, some grades it is more easy to get purple loot then other grades.

But this is not the only issue. I find it very annoiyng, that can get very hard to find a rich mission avaiable. If i can send companion on rich mission, why would i send him in normal mission? From the moment we unlock it, it should always be avaiable.

To "force" players to jump from SH to SH to reload and try get lucky, it is just ridiculous.

Normally, you can get from rich and bountifull, and ofc, wealthy. But then, like i mentioned above, some mission skills at some grades, dont even have rich version, cases of underworld trading grade 3 metal, higher is bountifull, or diplomacy grade 2, higher is abundant. There are more cases.

Then you have cases of grade 5 with 2 diferent rich missions.

Or investigation grade 2 or grade 4, both have 2 rich versions.

Most cases grade 6 higher is abundant too.

 

In the end, there is big unbalance, some grades it is more easy to get purple loot then other grades.

 

But this is not the only issue. I find it very annoiyng, that can get very hard to find a rich mission avaiable. If i can send companion on rich mission, why would i send him in normal mission? From the moment we unlock it, it should always be avaiable.

To "force" players to jump from SH to SH to reload and try get lucky, it is just ridiculous.

Honestly, I think the RNG is there to somewhat help control over-availability of high end crafted items. I don't have to agree with it, but I think that's why they did it. It doesn't help the fact that you can't really go all old school on it and spend hours farming nodes since I've yet to see an artifact material ever drop from that.

That said, having slicing on a character simply to farm up mission items is and has always been a recipe for success. Again, I don't necessarily agree with having to do that, but it is what it is.

Normally, you can get from rich and bountifull, and ofc, wealthy. But then, like i mentioned above, some mission skills at some grades, dont even have rich version, cases of underworld trading grade 3 metal, higher is bountifull, or diplomacy grade 2, higher is abundant. There are more cases.

Then you have cases of grade 5 with 2 diferent rich missions.

Or investigation grade 2 or grade 4, both have 2 rich versions.

Most cases grade 6 higher is abundant too.

 

In the end, there is big unbalance, some grades it is more easy to get purple loot then other grades.

 

But this is not the only issue. I find it very annoiyng, that can get very hard to find a rich mission avaiable. If i can send companion on rich mission, why would i send him in normal mission? From the moment we unlock it, it should always be avaiable.

To "force" players to jump from SH to SH to reload and try get lucky, it is just ridiculous.

BUT, grades 1-6 do NOT have the limitation that grades 9 and 11 have; ANY mission skill mission from grades 1 through 6 can crit purple mats. Furthermore, while grade 6 may only have up to abundant missions regardless of faction or crew skill, the amount of materials returned from those abundant missions is comparable to the bountiful and rich missions from grades 9 and 11.

And there are ways to stack the deck: start missions you do not want so when you refresh they can't show up in the list. Annoying? Yes. But I've said it many times already: you would probably be surprised how few players take advantage of the "relog dance"

Compared to the abomination that the new WoW crafting system is, swtor is far, far ahead. I'm in no way suggesting you don't have a legitimate beef, just that it's not nearly as bad as it could be.

 

Can things be improved? Absolutely! What's the point of armstech or armormech these days outside of barrels and augments? Almost all of the patterns are completely useless outside of the possible argument that it makes gearing companions easier (although the advent of the cartel market and collections system makes this argument almost invalid).

 

The truth is, the only truly viable crew skills these days are cybertech, biochem, slicing and artifice for enhancements and possibly due to the addition of top end relics, dyes, and color crystals.

 

Armstech, sythweaving, and armormech are basically only useful for augments. And that's sad.

 

Reverse engineering... my wife was all up in arms about this at first, mostly due to all the prefixes involved until I sat her down and drew it out on paper. I'll concede that sometimes RNG is a spiteful ******. I kinda hope something happens to augment this percentage, but unless you're trying to RE artifact gear for specific affixes for some reason, the only real bear is the time involved as materials are fairly abundant. And again, the crafting skills most affected by this are fairly useless these days.

 

Gathering missions... well I'm not sure what to say there. On the one hand, the rates of return are random at best, cruel at worst. But it's not like you're really taking time out of your overall play session to gather these mats in this manner. I'm not convinced much needs to be done here, but there are exceptions by way of some of the rates of return for artifact quality materials. I think they removed the possibility of artifact materials on anything but rich or wealthy missions, which was a huge disservice to the player IMO.

 

That said, if you're relying on rich missions to pop up in order to get your artifact materials, you're doing it wrong. Gathering mission consumables return these materials even without a critical success. Yeah, you get beans if they fail, but if your sending companions without max affection to gather artifact materials, again, you're doing it wrong.

 

Tl;dr

Crafting and gathering isn't as bad as it seems if you leverage all the available options. Sure, it can use some polish and maybe some cut and paste, but it's far from broken.

I ppreciate the reply and I understand your opinions. Thanks for giving me another good reason for never having tried to play WoW! When I think of fun crafting systems I think of Vanguard and EQ2. They were actually fun and challenging, sometimes. I still find myself spending huge blocks of play time just gathering in EQ2: "Oh look, a piece of candy!" Gathering in SWtOR is not fun. It's either tiered below the character on that planet or it's expensive roulette.

Gathering becomes even more ubsurd when one considers the stacks of materials one has to burn through on all the gear mods every few levels. That is, after one has Reverse-engineered all those mods to discover the blue tier.

Reverse Engineering for better recipes is a silly mechanic especially when the blue tier is more specialized and has three or more variants.

Like most crafting systems, the best way is to just sell the materials for money to use to buy the gear. But, some of the gear is so specialized, it's hard to find what one wants.

So, being the gear-queer that I am, I ground my way to five-hundred and many times I still don't have the materials or sometimes the recipe I want when it's time to update gear.