I'm pretty sure this was covered somewhere but why can't we order a companion to keep repeating a specific mission type? Especially on lower levels it's extremely annoying to have to press N and select the same mission every minute. Not to mention that it makes crew skill management on alts impossible.

 

It would be so much better if I could order a companion on my alt to bring in gemstones, another companion to retrieve lockboxes, another to get companion gifts. Then log on to another alt and so the same with medical supplies, biochemical compounds, underworld metals, scavenged components, you name it.

 

All you'd need to do is to allow us to chain up gathering and mission tasks to 5 like crafting skills. Then I could do an alt tour when logging in and another when logging out.

Two things happen with the current mechanics: one, you get annoyed; two, abiltity of getting mats while being offline limited

 

Think about Slicing and the Discovery missions, which provide rare mats, you can get.

 

For example, I have 3 Slicers maxed out. I go to bed / to work / to raid , and that means at most 15 missions running with me not doing anything. It's rare when I don't get something, common to get more than 1 mission. Imagine the mats I would be pouring into the market if instead of 15 mission I would be running 75. I think it's too much.

 

If they could come up with a more convenient way to balance the mats in game rather than just annoyance, well, it'd be great, but I don't think BW is putting much thought and effort in crafting as of late. Cartel Market takes priority of course

so, they just keep repeating the missions? so set up companions on alts, log off...come back tomorrow and you are 400 in everything?

 

c'mon man....that's making it way too easy. and talk about destroying the economy. the market would be flooded with crafting materials. it would destroy what's left of crafting.

Edited January 22, 2013 by Holinyx

so, they just keep repeating the missions? so set up companions on alts, log off...come back tomorrow and you are 400 in everything?

 

c'mon man....that's making it way too easy. and talk about destroying the economy. the market would be flooded with crafting materials. it would destroy what's left of crafting.

 

Agreed! Crafting should be dependent on chance as this one. Feels much real.

 

I'm frustrated for unsuccessful crafting attempts too. But I believe this is the way it should be otherwise you won't be as much happy when you were successful.

I can see this.. IF It was limited to only the lowest level or the two lowest levels of missions. You can't have people being able to queue up 5+ hours of mission gathering. I KNOW it's frustrating, trust me, the two resources I use a ton of are grade 2's and I've run at least eleventy billion missions for those.

They need to set up the crew missions so that they adjust the mission times/cost/yield for the lowbie missions so that they are more inline with the top tier missions ~ based on the gathering skill level of the player.

 

For Example:

When you get to 400 of a crew skill your missions for level 1 mats should run for an hour, cost about 2K, and yield about 10 times as many mats as your level 1 missions returned when you first learned the craft. With each successive grade the effect would diminish.

 

grade 1 x 10

grade 2 x 8

grade 3 x 6

grade 4 x 4

grade 5 x 2

grade 6 -no change

 

skill level

0-60 no change

60 -120 + 2x

120 -180 + 2x

180 - 240 + 2x

240 - 360 + 2x

360 - 400 + 2x

 

The multiplier becomes cumulative for all grades of missions below the level where the bonus was obtained.

 

The prices & times displayed by the UI would just be multiplied upward based on player skill level, & the rewards multiplied according. With NO EFFECT on engame crafting at all.

 

Example: A player with a skill level of 359 runs grade 1 missions with a 8x multiplier, grade 5 without a multiplier, and cannot yet run a grade 6 mission.

 

Basically, "adaptive" crew missions......................

 

Lowbie mat prices on the GTN have always been way out of whack with what they actually cost to obtain, and it would be good for lowbie players if the market for those mats to return at a higher rate, from missions that had an appropriate run time & cost.

 

I understand why they don't want people queueing up 5+ hours of grade 6 crew missions on each comp, because it would completely crash the market for endgame crafted goods. But the prices for lowbie crafted gear are insane for anyone to actually pay, unless they're leveling an alt. The prices are boosted up there because level 50's don't don't want to waste their time queuing up grade 1 missions every 2 minutes, and new players often don't understand how to use crafting or the GTN.

 

This might cause the prices for lowbie slicing missions to rocket through the roof, but I think that would be better than the current system where lowbies can't afford to buy gear from the GTN that is on level for them. They could adjust the drop rate for the lowbie slicing missions downward.

@Cleet, check your numbers because I think you are shortchanging a lot. Look at grade 1 missions...

 

The average cost is ~150 credits

The average time to complete is ~2.5 minutes

Each mission yields X materials

 

Using your numbers, a player pays ~2k for a 1 hour mission that returns 10 times the materials. So you are asking players to cough up 13.333x the cost and spend 24x the time to net 10x results? If it was implemented as a convenience option - sort of "fire and forget" - then OK, but replacing the existing system with your adaptive, the numbers need to be more closely inspected.

 

Other than that, I think your idea has merit.

 

That being said, there is a compromise solution that has been floated on these forums - a smartphone app with a fee for use. If you REALLY want to run materials missions or crafting constantly, download the app, setup your characters and pay a per use or monthly fee to do so. Blizzard did this with WoW's Auction House.

Those were just pulled out of the air for simplicity sake. So long as the bonuses avoid any weird "half a mat" results, they could be adjusted to whatever. The multiplier for level 1 missions would need to actually be something like 25 or so. Whereas, the level 5 missions don't really need any kind of multiplier. But you would want to make lowbie mats more expensive for 50's, or they would devestate the market for the lowbies trying to sell crafted goods.

 

The smartphone app is a popular idea, and I imagine that there will eventualy be an app. But even if there was, spamming level 1 missions on 5 companions gets old real fast.

Edited January 24, 2013 by Cleet_Xia

I agree I have been trying to get my diplomacy up and my biochem but hell. For me to get health packs at the level I need them now I have already blown over 200K in creds to get them. I'm only just approaching 200 in biochem So why bother. At that rate Its so stinking expensive to buy the supplies and so slow to gather them, I am wishing I have gotten slicing instead to get more creds to buy what I want. By the time I reach 400 I will have spent 500K in creds just for the materials to make reusable med packs at the lvl 50. Not to mention the stims and other stuff I would like.

 

Why should I bother bankrupting my toon for that?

 

Its stupid the way it is now. I will never do biochem again. I feel all crafting is a waste of time and frustrating as hell for me and that is because of this experience.

I agree I have been trying to get my diplomacy up and my biochem but hell. For me to get health packs at the level I need them now I have already blown over 200K in creds to get them. I'm only just approaching 200 in biochem So why bother. At that rate Its so stinking expensive to buy the supplies and so slow to gather them, I am wishing I have gotten slicing instead to get more creds to buy what I want. By the time I reach 400 I will have spent 500K in creds just for the materials to make reusable med packs at the lvl 50. Not to mention the stims and other stuff I would like.

 

Why should I bother bankrupting my toon for that?

 

Its stupid the way it is now. I will never do biochem again. I feel all crafting is a waste of time and frustrating as hell for me and that is because of this experience.

 

Honestly, this is an issue with a lot of MMOs - level appropriate content generally yields crafting materials that are slightly behind your level so what you craft is rarely better than what you get from quests and other leveling process sources. BioWare tried to remedy this with companion missions, but staying slightly ahead of your leveling curve does incur some credit crunches that leave you poor. That being said, when I did this on my first character the only thing I could not afford right away ability training wise was pilot rank 2 and 3 (and that was when those abilities cost a TON of credits compared to present).

maybe a legacy unlock *wink*

I think you should be able to que up missions but with certain restrictions, such as only on the lowest teirs (or those under a certain time) and only about the same amount that you can que up a item craft (I think the max is about 5 or 6) as it can be a little annoying whern you are trying to quest but constantly having to go to the companions menu to send them off each time especially when you have more companions and are sending 2 off at a time.

I agree with the idea of bein able to chain gathering missions, but it is also apparent the destruction of the in game economy. I believe the easiest solution would be allowing the queuing of gathering and other missions, but only when that character is logged in and being played. If a person were to queue up 4 or 5 missions and then log out, the companion would just finish the task they are currently on and wait until that character was logged in again to continue the queue. This would make it more convenient for players to gather resources while actually playing and would prevent the saturation of the gtn with crafting materials.

IMO it would be a good idea to queue up some crew missions, but not the high level ones. I think its quite simple to limit the timeframe (for example - you cant queue more then half an hour of missions, and cant queue more then 5). Currently - the actual crafing skills are way easier to get then supprt ones (just queue up some greens and rturn every 10 mins), especiallyif you have gathering alt.

I like the idea of returns being (partially) based on skill level (why does a lvl 400 scavenger return the same amount as a lvl 1 scavenger from the grade 1 missions?), but I'd rather have a smartphone app (& I don't even have a smartphone) & be able to chain up REing stuff. What the benefit of having to wait 4(?) seconds to RE an item is I don't know, but it's really annoying that on my Biochem I can RE a whole stack in one go (with no additional time cost for larger stacks) but my Armourmech can't. Same with giving gifts to your companion.