http://dulfy.net/2016/01/14/swtor-jan-14-producers-livestream-notes/

Skill level increase, new mats, new schematics etc. etc.

Just when you think you have it all under control they change it all up again.

Hopefully they give us really good information to plan with this time like they prior to the GSH crafting updates.

Doubtful though.

My bets:

Skill cap of all skills raised to 550 along with new grade 9 materials for all crew skills, requiring crafting of existing 178 / 186 items to push above 500, then crafting blue 192-200 items to level, with new 208 purple items at 550.

Add 208 purple items including basic stat modifications and possibly relics, ears and implants which will be learned from RE blue trainer schematics, will require skill level 550, and will use new materials.

Change the existing 208 and up end-game schematics to put them at the new skill cap of 550, possibly including changes to the materials required for crafting to align with the new materials.

Add +4 item levels to the existing 208 blue fixed stat scheamtics, including +4 to the reverse engineered 216 / 220 items learned from the 208 blue fixed stat schematics.

Big unknowns:

What happens to already known schematics such as 208 augments, 216 / 220 schematics learned through reverse engineering operations gear, 216 / 220 schematics learned through reverse engineering the fixed stat 208 items, and the existing MK-8 kits?

I wonder if these scheamtics will simply get removed when the patch comes with a 'so sorry but nothing else we could do' and have to be re-learned at 550 or will they somehow be retained and 'unlocked' upon reaching the new skill cap of 550 requirement.

Will new levels of anything max level today be added, such as MK kits, higher level stims and adrenals, or higher level augments?

Will the new materials include new exotic materials, or just new crew skill gathering / mission materials?

Will the new materials be added to the jawa vendors?

Will the items previously crafted from the existing 208 (or RE 216 / 220) schematics increase +4 levels, or is the +4 only going to apply to the schematics to craft new items post patch?

Who, in their right mind, thinks that releasing a crafting cap increase without a corresponding lvl cap increase is a good idea?

BW missed doing it with 4.0 and it is too late to remake that decision....

BW, your choices matter.

That is mildly upsetting, but not totally unexpected

Yeah, I am just sad. Disappointed, disheartened... Of all the things I feel need work on this game, the absolute last thing was the crafting cap levels!

They are going to spend valuable time, money, energy, thought process... On this?

I played eq2, for a long time. The day they began shifting the crafting system around, gimping it, making it easier etc., was the day I quit that game.

When the game begins to "fix" **** and monkey with stuff that doesn't need changed, in fact making it worse I get frustrated.

This is just stupid imo.

Yeah, I am just sad. Disappointed, disheartened... Of all the things I feel need work on this game, the absolute last thing was the crafting cap levels!

 

They are going to spend valuable time, money, energy, thought process... On this?

 

I played eq2, for a long time. The day they began shifting the crafting system around, gimping it, making it easier etc., was the day I quit that game.

 

When the game begins to "fix" **** and monkey with stuff that doesn't need changed, in fact making it worse I get frustrated.

 

This is just stupid imo.

In BW's defense the crafting system needed some alteration because there were too many complaints about the RNG factors: low RE chance, and useless schematics (at the time I disagreed with those complaints, but I adapt ). They fixed both of these issues by removing all the "useless" schematics (including premium/green gear) and by increasing the RE chance from 10% or 20% to 60% or 100%. Granted they replaced the green gear with "components" but IMO this as a small price to pay. Especially when you consider that the components are an easy way to level the skill and they can be REed for augmentation slot kit components.

Furthermore, changing affection to influence was a good move as well because now regardless of the decisions you make while leveling, a companion's influence always goes up.

In addition, a dedicated crafter can now have an advantage over the casual crafter because a dedicated crafter will put in the effort to get at least one companion to influence rank 50 resulting in a very high crit chance (40%) and extreme efficiency. That extreme efficiency also benefits the player who actually plays the game and can "babysit" crafting and missions instead of the once or twice a day logger on who's only reason to log on is crew skills.

My disappointment more stems from the fact that I thought they would not need to introduce new grades of materials ever again...just increase the number of components and other materials required to craft top end stuff. Heck they could have even introduced new components that required more gathering skills materials to craft in the first place. Heck with there apparent predilection for adding required materials skills, they could have created components that required a mix of the three gathering skills materials to make top end crafting "more challenging."

My question is could this be a reaction to their "mistakes"?

- Yavin: By introducing new materials they greatly reduce the demand for grade 8 materials and therefore Yavin is no longer a boon for gatherers. They can introduce new gathering areas with "better ratios".

- Exotic material requirements: When it costs 150 glowing data crystals in exotic material value (EISs cost 25 crystals and you need 6 of them) to craft *A* piece of 208 gear, even dedicated crafters balk. And the "normal" supply stream (HMFPs and Ops) is simply insufficient - I am a casual FP runner (3-6 HMFPs a week) and I consider myself lucky to get ONE EIS a week. By adding a new grade of materials they can make 208 gear worth crafting using those materials

I

- Exotic material requirements: When it costs 150 glowing data crystals in exotic material value (EISs cost 25 crystals and you need 6 of them) to craft *A* piece of 208 gear, even dedicated crafters balk. And the "normal" supply stream (HMFPs and Ops) is simply insufficient - I am a casual FP runner (3-6 HMFPs a week) and I consider myself lucky to get ONE EIS a week. By adding a new grade of materials they can make 208 gear worth crafting using those materials

Except that the 6 become 8 when you re it to 216 as my friend did for my main pistol (non-modable) I asked her to make.

Except that the 6 become 8 when you re it to 216 as my friend did for my main pistol (non-modable) I asked her to make.

That just emphasizes my point.: to craft anything 208 or above requires a HUGE investment of exotic materials, and that investment is simply outta whack with the rest of crafting

In BW's defense the crafting system needed some alteration because there were too many complaints about the RNG factors: low RE chance, and useless schematics (at the time I disagreed with those complaints, but I adapt ). They fixed both of these issues by removing all the "useless" schematics (including premium/green gear) and by increasing the RE chance from 10% or 20% to 60% or 100%. Granted they replaced the green gear with "components" but IMO this as a small price to pay. Especially when you consider that the components are an easy way to level the skill and they can be REed for augmentation slot kit components.

 

Furthermore, changing affection to influence was a good move as well because now regardless of the decisions you make while leveling, a companion's influence always goes up.

 

In addition, a dedicated crafter can now have an advantage over the casual crafter because a dedicated crafter will put in the effort to get at least one companion to influence rank 50 resulting in a very high crit chance (40%) and extreme efficiency. That extreme efficiency also benefits the player who actually plays the game and can "babysit" crafting and missions instead of the once or twice a day logger on who's only reason to log on is crew skills.

 

My disappointment more stems from the fact that I thought they would not need to introduce new grades of materials ever again...just increase the number of components and other materials required to craft top end stuff. Heck they could have even introduced new components that required more gathering skills materials to craft in the first place. Heck with there apparent predilection for adding required materials skills, they could have created components that required a mix of the three gathering skills materials to make top end crafting "more challenging."

 

My question is could this be a reaction to their "mistakes"?

 

- Yavin: By introducing new materials they greatly reduce the demand for grade 8 materials and therefore Yavin is no longer a boon for gatherers. They can introduce new gathering areas with "better ratios".

 

- Exotic material requirements: When it costs 150 glowing data crystals in exotic material value (EISs cost 25 crystals and you need 6 of them) to craft *A* piece of 208 gear, even dedicated crafters balk. And the "normal" supply stream (HMFPs and Ops) is simply insufficient - I am a casual FP runner (3-6 HMFPs a week) and I consider myself lucky to get ONE EIS a week. By adding a new grade of materials they can make 208 gear worth crafting using those materials

If you think they are putting any thought into crafting beyond adding what should have been included in 4.0 (skill cap raised along side level cap, new materials added to cover new skill range / cap, basic craftable items added to cover new skill range / cap), I think you will be disappointed.

Why this wasn't included in 4.0 is anyone's guess, mine being they just didn't bother to assign resources (probably because they didn't have any free resources) and they just figured 'what the hell, we'll patch it in later'.

Hi,

Do we know for a fact that there will be more 'normal' materials added in Feb? By that I mean another Grade added in above Grade 8? Is it possible that the new materials being added are just more varieties of 'Exotic' ?

Though I suspect it won't come to pass, one my main hopes for the upgrade is that they sort out the problems with many skills in the apparently 'random' allocation of some old schemes to the Archive, while other parts of the same custom armour set (for example) still appear in Medium, Heavy etc.

My other main hope is that they will fix the requirements for many Artifice, Armstech, etc schematics to once again require Treasure Hunting, Investigation etc materials (as they used to), instead of the near universal requirement for Slicing materials. For the life of me I can see no logical reason for Slicing to be emphasised in such a way, doing so destroys the the previous Craft / Gather / Mission trinity balance that existed previously.

Fingers crossed anyway!

Yes, more mats, that was mentioned in the livestream, along with that the initial (not complete) description of what was changing with crafting was six pages, so there's a lot going on with it. We're supposed to get full details later this month in one or more articles due to the number of changes.

QoL changes to missions are supposed to be a major change, being able to assign the right one to the right companion with less hassle.

Augment Kit MK-8's were too involved to get into at the time but the implication was that they weren't going to simply become obsolete.

In BW's defense the crafting system needed some alteration because there were too many complaints about the RNG factors: low RE chance, and useless schematics (at the time I disagreed with those complaints, but I adapt ). They fixed both of these issues by removing all the "useless" schematics (including premium/green gear) and by increasing the RE chance from 10% or 20% to 60% or 100%. Granted they replaced the green gear with "components" but IMO this as a small price to pay. Especially when you consider that the components are an easy way to level the skill and they can be REed for augmentation slot kit components.

Furthermore, changing affection to influence was a good move as well because now regardless of the decisions you make while leveling, a companion's influence always goes up.

 

In addition, a dedicated crafter can now have an advantage over the casual crafter because a dedicated crafter will put in the effort to get at least one companion to influence rank 50 resulting in a very high crit chance (40%) and extreme efficiency. That extreme efficiency also benefits the player who actually plays the game and can "babysit" crafting and missions instead of the once or twice a day logger on who's only reason to log on is crew skills.

 

My disappointment more stems from the fact that I thought they would not need to introduce new grades of materials ever again...just increase the number of components and other materials required to craft top end stuff. Heck they could have even introduced new components that required more gathering skills materials to craft in the first place. Heck with there apparent predilection for adding required materials skills, they could have created components that required a mix of the three gathering skills materials to make top end crafting "more challenging."

 

My question is could this be a reaction to their "mistakes"?

 

- Yavin: By introducing new materials they greatly reduce the demand for grade 8 materials and therefore Yavin is no longer a boon for gatherers. They can introduce new gathering areas with "better ratios".

 

- Exotic material requirements: When it costs 150 glowing data crystals in exotic material value (EISs cost 25 crystals and you need 6 of them) to craft *A* piece of 208 gear, even dedicated crafters balk. And the "normal" supply stream (HMFPs and Ops) is simply insufficient - I am a casual FP runner (3-6 HMFPs a week) and I consider myself lucky to get ONE EIS a week. By adding a new grade of materials they can make 208 gear worth crafting using those materials

Bold: WRONG.

(and I've had repeated issues where RE-ing component did not result in an augment kit part .. I thought it was a random chance perhaps? Was I bugged? )

Components ARE useless schematics. And as I discovered crafting components, there are plenty of things not using them. So here I am wanting to craft some orange stuff, but my mats are now tied into components. Oh, and the components are not "artifice" components, but "synthweaving", so I need to make sure I divide my mats between my professions component wise...

4.0 was terrible for crafting.

Here's what the morons should have done, but it requires an IQ above 50:

REMOVE the green, blue, purple item schematics.

REPLACE by orange gear, and modding items.

Boom, lowbie crafting very valid; craft yourself some early orange shells, they can last all the way through end-game.

No components,

why do we need "augmentation kit parts" anyway? -> Replaced with high material cost and a looong crafting time. (Perhaps you can only schedule 1 augment kit crafting/crewmember if that is an issue)

Bonus points for:

not putting slicing materials on all the stuff. (da F do I need slicing for, to make a lightsaber crystal? )

The arena thingie is delayed, it is the 21st of January, we still don't know what they're gonna do come the 11th,

but supposedly adding extra gear and screwing with schematics again is somehow "CONTENT"?

I would like to see the jerk that decided to have another crafting rework, especially "ooh.. let's add another level of materials" fired. Hire someone else that can work on other issues instead.

I do not bother to craft any 208 stuff, it is far easier to get PVP 208 equivalent for any slot.

Even 204 PVP set gear is better that the 208 crafted garbage IMHO.

QoL changes to missions are supposed to be a major change, being able to assign the right one to the right companion with less hassle.

The "right" companion? Are you thinking of the (now obsolete, AFAIK) extra crit chance for certain crew skills and such each companion used to have? Or what do you mean, or what does Bioware mean, by "right" companion?

Oh, an other thing where are the rank 9 materials going to come, there are no gathering nodes in Zakuul.

No nodes available after Revan, once you max Rishi reputation there is no reason to go back there.

Furthermore this is BW we are talking about. they are sure to mess the crafting change, they have messed everything else in the game, why would this be any different.

208 blue gear requires HM drops amd Purple OPS drops.

What are the 208+ going to need? Cartel coins?

I'd wager they'll add nodes to the Endless Swamp and Breaktown.

Do we have a reason to go there, once we have completed our chapters there?

No dailies or any kind of quests beyond the few chapters happening there, not even a faction grind.

Beyond doing the chapters there i have not even thought about going there.

Who, in their right mind, thinks that releasing a crafting cap increase without a corresponding lvl cap increase is a good idea?

 

BW missed doing it with 4.0 and it is too late to remake that decision....

BW, your choices matter.

Why do you think level cap increases are a good idea?

Why do you think level cap increases are a good idea?

It's an interesting question. I think that level cap increases have the potential to be a good thing.

Prior to 2.0, I was looking forward to the level cap increase as we had a skill point based system, and I had a number of ideas about some really interesting hybrid builds I could put together with 5 more skill points. Unfortunately (for me anyway), BW decided to add filler skills and push the capstone up. This had the side effect of a level 55 character not playing different than a 50. So it seemed a bit meaningless.

I gather that hybrids make a balancing problem, yada yada, so that was never going to be in the cards.

Both the 2.0 and 3.0 level cap increases also afforded players with the option of "overleveling" certain endgame content. Flashpoints and whatnot. This went away with 4.0, with everything scaled to 65.

Another thing a level cap increase does it reset the "baseline" for endgame gear. When 3.0 came around, I had some alts that were behind as far as gear goes -- the reset allowed me to craft some 186 gear to bring them up to snuff and take them into flashpoints and whatnot.

From a crafting perspective, the ability to craft 186 gear in 3.0 marked my most successful "crafting for profit" in all the time that I've played this game. The gear was still selling 2 weeks before 4.0 dropped.

Now, the level cap increase in 4.0 was not accompanied by another tier of easily crafted endgame gear. You have the non-moddable stuff requiring conquest mats, and the learned operations gear drops that require even rarer mats.

I suppose this new change next month is supposed to address that issue?

It's an interesting question. I think that level cap increases have the potential to be a good thing.

 

Prior to 2.0, I was looking forward to the level cap increase as we had a skill point based system, and I had a number of ideas about some really interesting hybrid builds I could put together with 5 more skill points. Unfortunately (for me anyway), BW decided to add filler skills and push the capstone up. This had the side effect of a level 55 character not playing different than a 50. So it seemed a bit meaningless.

 

I gather that hybrids make a balancing problem, yada yada, so that was never going to be in the cards.

 

Both the 2.0 and 3.0 level cap increases also afforded players with the option of "overleveling" certain endgame content. Flashpoints and whatnot. This went away with 4.0, with everything scaled to 65.

 

Another thing a level cap increase does it reset the "baseline" for endgame gear. When 3.0 came around, I had some alts that were behind as far as gear goes -- the reset allowed me to craft some 186 gear to bring them up to snuff and take them into flashpoints and whatnot.

 

From a crafting perspective, the ability to craft 186 gear in 3.0 marked my most successful "crafting for profit" in all the time that I've played this game. The gear was still selling 2 weeks before 4.0 dropped.

 

Now, the level cap increase in 4.0 was not accompanied by another tier of easily crafted endgame gear. You have the non-moddable stuff requiring conquest mats, and the learned operations gear drops that require even rarer mats.

 

I suppose this new change next month is supposed to address that issue?

Hopefully the increase the mats drops 10 fold.

I think the resources spent implementing increases would be better used fixing what they already have!

But that's just it, a LOT of the time with crew skill cap increases and all the features that come with it, they make adjustments to the system to fix issues. They may not go back and fix what prompted those adjustments but they are recognizing that adjustments have to be made and are doing so.