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Why I'm giving up crafting.


TheRealFluffy

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I believe crafting should be both useful for gaming and beneficial for making money. But the reality is you get better gear from operations. You get better money from selling raw materials. Why bother getting top level schematics when the next week you'll get better gear from an operation? If someone puts in the effort to reach the top in a craft, they should be able to craft the best gear in the game. Otherwise there's simply no point.
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I understand that you're frustrated at not being able to craft the best gear in the game, and that is important enough to you to stop crafting altogether.

 

But your opening statement is:

I believe crafting should be both useful for gaming and beneficial for making money.

 

And the fact of the matter, crafting allows you to do both. Here are a few ways:

 

1. The 10-45 bracket is extremely hot area for crafting opportunities. I craft for my alts, my guildies, and these products move quite well on the GTN.

2. Selling raw mats vs final crafted product fluctuates. Sometimes it is better to craft. Recently, I've gotten in the habit of crafting and selling Grade 28 Augments and it has been very profitable. I keep an eye on the Thermal Regulator market just in case, but for a while now I've been making 50% more profit selling the final product over the raw materials.

3. Remember that NO Best in Slot gear is complete without Augments and Augment Kits that DON'T come from raids.

4. Artifice and Armstech can craft grade 30 hilts, grade 30 barrels, and low-endurance grade 30 enhancements.

 

Have you looked over the garbage high-endo enhancements in the Verpine stuff? One of my guildies unlocked the Adept Enhancement 30 and Initiative Enhancement 30. He crafted 3 of these for my main. Despite my group having HM SV on farm, I STILL haven't replaced all of them.

 

The Skill Barrel 30, Reflex Barrel 30, Might Hilt 30, Adept Enhancement 30 and Initiative Enhancement 30 all sell for 1-2 million. Which is a significant profit over the raw materials. And just imagine what happens when you get a crit.

 

When 2.2 drops and the grade 31 gear is available for crafting, the same thing will happen.

 

Feel free to give up crafting. But it's silly to think that crafting "isn't useful for gaming" and "isn't beneficial for making money".

Edited by Khevar
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I feel for him to .I won't give up crafting but give us the mats so we can actlly use the Schematic more at least before 2.0 we had way better access to mats the problem was not the mats it was we could make in game gear . We can't now and I heard off till now about saying anything in the line making stuff .

 

But am now with 72 being able to REed in 2.2 .

 

MY main issue now is mats , and how useless even the 72 I'll be able to craft will in a way be useless to me .

 

Here is a post I made asking why and remember I did hold my peace till now .

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=645658

 

its is now gonna be pointless letting us make the next to best gear and only the rich or high profile players can .

 

read my other post before you flame me .. and I did say I heard my peace till now . :) .

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If someone puts in the effort to reach the top in a craft, they should be able to craft the best gear in the game. Otherwise there's simply no point.

 

Wrong, making the top tier gear available to everyone makes end game raiding useless.

The whole point of end game raiding is to obtain the best gear available, not for everyone and their brother to buy it off the GTN.

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I understand that you're frustrated at not being able to craft the best gear in the game, and that is important enough to you to stop crafting altogether.

 

But your opening statement is:

 

 

And the fact of the matter, crafting allows you to do both. Here are a few ways:

 

1. The 10-45 bracket is extremely hot area for crafting opportunities. I craft for my alts, my guildies, and these products move quite well on the GTN.

2. Selling raw mats vs final crafted product fluctuates. Sometimes it is better to craft. Recently, I've gotten in the habit of crafting and selling Grade 28 Augments and it has been very profitable. I keep an eye on the Thermal Regulator market just in case, but for a while now I've been making 50% more profit selling the final product over the raw materials.

3. Remember that NO Best in Slot gear is complete without Augments and Augment Kits that DON'T come from raids.

4. Artifice and Armstech can craft grade 30 hilts, grade 30 barrels, and low-endurance grade 30 enhancements.

 

Have you looked over the garbage high-endo enhancements in the Verpine stuff? One of my guildies unlocked the Adept Enhancement 30 and Initiative Enhancement 30. He crafted 3 of these for my main. Despite my group having HM SV on farm, I STILL haven't replaced all of them.

 

The Skill Barrel 30, Reflex Barrel 30, Might Hilt 30, Adept Enhancement 30 and Initiative Enhancement 30 all sell for 1-2 million. Which is a significant profit over the raw materials. And just imagine what happens when you get a crit.

 

When 2.2 drops and the grade 31 gear is available for crafting, the same thing will happen.

 

Feel free to give up crafting. But it's silly to think that crafting "isn't useful for gaming" and "isn't beneficial for making money".

 

Although I disagree with a lot of what you said, I will address point 2. I am currently logged on to Harbinger and have the GTN up as I post.

 

Thermal Regulators are going at (lowest) 28,500 credits.

 

Purple level 28 augments are as follows (partial list):

 

Might - 115,000

Overkill - 108,000

Absorb - 114,000

skill - 117,000

shiled - 118,000

resolve - 119,000

reflex - 118,500.

 

So I think that you are saying that selling an item for 114,000 to 120,000 gives 50% more profit than selling four of only one of the mats that are used to making it for 28,500 each.

 

Want to clarify?

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Although I disagree with a lot of what you said, I will address point 2. I am currently logged on to Harbinger and have the GTN up as I post.

 

Thermal Regulators are going at (lowest) 28,500 credits.

 

Purple level 28 augments are as follows (partial list):

 

Might - 115,000

Overkill - 108,000

Absorb - 114,000

skill - 117,000

shiled - 118,000

resolve - 119,000

reflex - 118,500.

 

So I think that you are saying that selling an item for 114,000 to 120,000 gives 50% more profit than selling four of only one of the mats that are used to making it for 28,500 each.

 

Want to clarify?

On Begeren Colony right at this very moment:

 

Thermal Regulator - 34k

Augments:

Might - 184k

Overkill - 194k

Absorb - 195k

Skill - 184k

Shield - 182k

Resolve - 219k

Reflex - 182k

Redoubt - 198k

 

10 augments take 40 TRs. I could sell those for 1.36 million. OR

 

I craft 5 Resolve, 5 Redoubt on my Synth. Kira has +5, and C2-N2 has +5. So far, every time I do a block of 10, I've gotten 2-3 crits. This makes sense as I have a 23% crit chance with each of them.

 

13 augments would sell for 2.6 million which is, in fact, a 100% profit increase over the raw mats. If I got no crits, it would be 2 million, which is a 47% profit over the raw materials.

 

As for disagreeing with the rest:

 

1. Are you saying the 10-45 bracket is worthless for crafting opportunities?

3. Are you saying Best in Slot gear is possible without augments? Or that augments can be obtained from raids?

4. Are you saying that grade 30 hilts/barrels/enhancements cannot be crafted? That they aren't valuable? Or that they don't sell?

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On Begeren Colony right at this very moment:

 

Thermal Regulator - 34k

Augments:

Might - 184k

Overkill - 194k

Absorb - 195k

Skill - 184k

Shield - 182k

Resolve - 219k

Reflex - 182k

Redoubt - 198k

 

10 augments take 40 TRs. I could sell those for 1.36 million. OR

 

I craft 5 Resolve, 5 Redoubt on my Synth. Kira has +5, and C2-N2 has +5. So far, every time I do a block of 10, I've gotten 2-3 crits. This makes sense as I have a 23% crit chance with each of them.

 

13 augments would sell for 2.6 million which is, in fact, a 100% profit increase over the raw mats. If I got no crits, it would be 2 million, which is a 47% profit over the raw materials.

 

As for disagreeing with the rest:

 

1. Are you saying the 10-45 bracket is worthless for crafting opportunities?

3. Are you saying Best in Slot gear is possible without augments? Or that augments can be obtained from raids?

4. Are you saying that grade 30 hilts/barrels/enhancements cannot be crafted? That they aren't valuable? Or that they don't sell?

 

Indeed true, I just checked it out. Begeren Colony TRs = 33K, advanced might augment 185k, == profit. Unfortunately I am on Harbinger where TRs = 26,500, advanced might augment 112k, == loss.

 

I think that your view is that of your server and not of mine. I am not sure what the others are showing. So I would take exception to your ccnclusions. (PS - BW can I transfer all of my characters to Begeren Colony so that crafting will be good for me too). I will not comment on the other points since it is probably a case of the same. Economy limping along poorly on Harbinger and not totally trashed on Begeren Colony at the moment.

 

It may make sense to ask those that say that they are having bad experience which server they are on before you refute their comments with activity on your own.

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...

 

It may make sense to ask those that say that they are having bad experience which server they are on before you refute their comments with activity on your own.

This is a fair request.

 

But tell me now, do you really believe, that on The Harbinger, crafting is both "not useful for gaming" and "not beneficial for making money"?

 

And if so, can you elaborate on why that is?

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Wrong, making the top tier gear available to everyone makes end game raiding useless.

The whole point of end game raiding is to obtain the best gear available, not for everyone and their brother to buy it off the GTN.

 

End game gear should be craftable as well in my opinion. If the gear drops are the only motivation for raiding and the great teamwork and team skill required for the raid doesn't motivate, then something is wrong here. I had the impression that the success expirience as a raiding team is the motivation here.

 

As it is now the first two tiers are not craftable (because the mats come only from raid drops), which cuts the non raiders away from gear progression in a unfair manner IMO and hands a license to print money over to the raiding community by selling the mats. I have no problem with raids dropping very special (bound) items like mounts, pets etc. and of corse tier 1 gear. But PVE gear as raid only, is a no go.

 

Lore wise i see no reason for top rated gear no being crafteble, the end boss must have gotten it from somewhere in the first place, or not? So there is a crafter somewhere around with the knowledge to make this stuff. They could add a mission line (master craftsman as entry condition for instance) to find this fellow and learn from him. Then we would have a end game progression for other then raid playstyles.

 

The end game is unfairly balanced towards raiding and all other playstyles including PVP are treated badly.

Raid gear drops are PVE gear NOT raiding gear alone, so a PVE player need a way to obtain it, especialy when all kind of events are scaled up now.

Edited by mike_is_valid
typo
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End game gear should be craftable as well in my opinion. If the gear drops are the only motivation for raiding and the great teamwork and team skill required for the raid doesn't motivate, then something is wrong here. I had the impression that the success expirience as a raiding team is the motivation here.

 

As it is now the first two tiers are not craftable (because the mats come only from raid drops), which cuts the non raiders away from gear progression in a unfair manner IMO and hands a license to print money over to the raiding community by selling the mats. I have no problem with raids dropping very special (bound) items like mounts, pets etc. and of corse tier 1 gear. But PVE gear as raid only, is a no go.

 

...

What difference if the mats come from raid drops? Buy them on the gtn, craft, sell for a profit.

 

You can still make plenty of millions without ever setting foot in a raid.

 

Oh, and "License to print money" is absurd hyperbole. Most of the raiders I know are not remotely rich. And the crafters I know that are, don't need to raid to make good money.

 

Read the thread stickied at the top of this forum if you need to learn how to profit in this game.

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If someone puts in the effort to reach the top in a craft, they should be able to craft the best gear in the game. Otherwise there's simply no point.

 

I agree with you except that it can never happen in any non-Sandbox game. The best they can do is give certain slots to crafters. I don't know of an MMO that allow you to craft BiS for most slots that is not a sandbox.

 

If you could buy BiS then a lot of the motivation and incentive for people to run ops would go away.

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What difference if the mats come from raid drops? Buy them on the gtn, craft, sell for a profit.

 

You can still make plenty of millions without ever setting foot in a raid.

 

Oh, and "License to print money" is absurd hyperbole. Most of the raiders I know are not remotely rich. And the crafters I know that are, don't need to raid to make good money.

 

Read the thread stickied at the top of this forum if you need to learn how to profit in this game.

 

Where did you read anything about not being able to make money?

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I agree with you except that it can never happen in any non-Sandbox game. The best they can do is give certain slots to crafters. I don't know of an MMO that allow you to craft BiS for most slots that is not a sandbox.

 

If you could buy BiS then a lot of the motivation and incentive for people to run ops would go away.

 

True, but that is a real problem (probably the worst) in modern mmo design. The end game strategy is to push people to raid. Yet most people are not raiders. If most of those that do raid have a significant part of their motivation as gear advancement, how many are raiding for the fun, challenge, and enjoymnt of the raid itself? Of the few who do raid because they like raiding, where is there to go after the last boss on the last raid is down and they have BIS gear?

 

Crafting is actually one of the largest sandbox element in any mmo and will keep people playing and spending hour after hour honing their skills and participating in commerce. Yet at best. it is given a weak try and, as you noted, sacrificed to raiders. Some (most?) games tie crafting at the highest levels into raiding by making the rare schematics and mats into raiding as drops. That serves non raiders poorly and ends up creating a two class craftng system which in the end, gets people to raid for the profit and not for the raid itself. How many guilds (rich rich guilds) have raids on farm after doing them for the first few times?

 

So we indeed do not see mmos giving (non raiding) crafters much cap level oppertunity. We see mmos adopt a raid or die cap level design philosopyy. We also see people bailing out of mmos after playing them for a short to moderate amount of time after they reach cap, level an alt or two and then feel that there is nothing to do. We see raiders bail in droves at least until a new raid is introduced and then they resub, beat the raid, and then unsub again. I wonder if there is a correlation there.

 

Edit - LOL, I rember in Cata that there was a daily chain that took a lot of work, but gave a BIS trinket. I remember some of the raiders coughing up a hair ball in rage over that. But I also remember that there were so many people running the dailies (no lag and good respawn time so everyone could do them without frustration) that you could almost not see the mobs for the number of players running around. I also remember how pleased that I was when I got my trinket.

Edited by asbalana
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This is a fair request.

 

But tell me now, do you really believe, that on The Harbinger, crafting is both "not useful for gaming" and "not beneficial for making money"?

 

And if so, can you elaborate on why that is?

 

Second point first. You can make money crafting. Case in point, I gave my wife 2M credits a little less than a week ago to buy some CM shiny that she wanted from the GTN. She insisted on paying me back and has done so in under a week. She can spit out TRs and Beryllius faster that can be believed. Her sustained crit rate defies belief. I will be sending her out to buy some lottery tickets on Monday.

 

But the market is limited and money making oppertunities are not wide spread. Mods, armoring, enhancements, barrels, and hilts (with a few exceptions) on a Makeb level or below have gone from viable crafting products to Planetary Commendation purchases. Armor (Synth and Armormech) is not worth craftng any longer since you can pick up adaptive CM gear dirt cheap on the GTN. You can also get gear and weapons for PCs. With the drop in item modification crafting came a drop in mat pricing. Most money mats pre 2.0 have dropped in price to the point that if you can sell them, they sell for less than the mission cost. Yup, I can still craft implants and earpieces and a few other things, but with all of the crafters being forced into a smaller product universe, profit margins if you can make a sale have dropped.

 

Let's see, Arch and Scavaging have two new mats between level 6 and level 9. You can still make money on them but there are page after page of listings. Everyone is running missions for those mats. That does not bode well long term. It is better with Bio but not so much. Slicing, TH, Inv, UT have two new mats between 6 and 9. Yip, yip. One of those mats is totally worthless and the other, the purple, crit based. You lucky - profit, you not lucky - watch credits go bye bye. And then what can you make with those mats? A few worth while augments, mods, armorings, etc. Yip, yip. We have established that on your server those few can be sold for more than the mat cost and on mine at below the mat cost. Yip, yip.

 

Purples come from bountyful and rich mission only afteer 2.0. Bountyful missions cost a hundred or two less than rich and yet if you crit provide much less return. So bountyful missions make no sense to run (as well as moderate or abundent). So now, there is only one mission type to run. That's not good. Throw in the fact that you have to replenish you mission list to actually get a viable mission, that is not good at all.

 

I note that crafting mission costs have almost doubled with 2.0. It's been a while since I have run a Makeb daily and am not sure how they compare in cash generated with the other pre Makeb dailies. But on the whole, my non crafting income has been pretty stagnent while my crafting costs have more than doubled (more than because I am getting a lot more failed missions than before 2.0). That is not good.

 

So yes, crafting is still somewhat useful and depending on server, if you ara a lucky puppy you can still make credits. There are also only a few plays where you can make money without the gods of luck resting on your shoulders. But all in all the profit / money making ability in crafting has significantly decreased for most and the useful items that can be crafted (especially for players in the leveling process) has been severly limited.

 

Please do not misunderstand my tone in this post. I have the greatest respect for you. My tone is directed at the new system.

Edited by asbalana
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Wrong, making the top tier gear available to everyone makes end game raiding useless.

The whole point of end game raiding is to obtain the best gear available, not for everyone and their brother to buy it off the GTN.

 

Why not? If people have the patience to make it and the money to buy it.

 

Locking the best gear to operation level seems backwards to me, allow people to specialise and excel in other areas and you'd have a happier player base.

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Why not? If people have the patience to make it and the money to buy it.

 

Locking the best gear to operation level seems backwards to me, allow people to specialise and excel in other areas and you'd have a happier player base.

 

Because, if you're able to be fully geared with the absolute best gear before even setting 1 foot into the instance, what's the point of even doing them?

The gear is the "carrot on the stick" for us raiders,that's what drives end game raiding.

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Because, if you're able to be fully geared with the absolute best gear before even setting 1 foot into the instance, what's the point of even doing them?

The gear is the "carrot on the stick" for us raiders,that's what drives end game raiding.

 

The carrot is still there, no-one has suggested taking drops out of ops. But why should dedicated crafters/explorers/money-makers not have access to equally good reward?

Edited by lilmanweddle
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I am going to bring up a game people love to bash but going to do it anyways.

 

In SWG we were able to craft pretty much everything and if a schematic drop in one say Exar Kun and you couldn't use it you either sold it or gave it to a crafter that used it.

 

The items at first you couldn't trade but they changed that and you were able to sell or trade them and guess what it still had people wanting to do things like Exar Kun, Nightsister, etc. It never took away from them

 

I don't see if they allow the same things here it would actually stop people from doing them because a lot of people enjoy doing them.

 

It just makes the community work together as a whole which is a good thing not a bad. There are items on that I can craft on my crafter I wish was not bind on pickup so I can craft them for my friends.

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Then I fail to see your point.

 

The guy doing Flashpoints with his 3 mates shouldn't have access to the same gear as people who run Ops? I've never understood the attitude.

 

They have access, all they need to do is run ops to get the gear.

If they don't run ops, then there is no reason for them to have the gear, as it's not needed to complete FP's.

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End game gear should be craftable as well in my opinion. If the gear drops are the only motivation for raiding and the great teamwork and team skill required for the raid doesn't motivate, then something is wrong here. I had the impression that the success expirience as a raiding team is the motivation here.

The motivation for raiding is both working as a team AND getting gear - that is how an operations group progresses.

 

- if you have the best gear available but do not work as a team you fail to progress

- if you work amazingly well as a team but do not have to gear necessary to kill bosses you fail to progress.

 

The two motivations go hand-in-hand.

I agree with you except that it can never happen in any non-Sandbox game. The best they can do is give certain slots to crafters. I don't know of an MMO that allow you to craft BiS for most slots that is not a sandbox.

 

If you could buy BiS then a lot of the motivation and incentive for people to run ops would go away.

Three expansions ago in WoW (The Burning Crusade), Blizzard tried to give crafters the chance to craft BiS gear. The problem was that the gear was BoP and so only the very dedicated - the most hardcore players - could craft the gear; they would jump from profession to profession with each content patch to get the crafted BiS gear for their class.

 

So yes, crafting is still somewhat useful and depending on server, if you ara a lucky puppy you can still make credits. There are also only a few plays where you can make money without the gods of luck resting on your shoulders. But all in all the profit / money making ability in crafting has significantly decreased for most and the useful items that can be crafted (especially for players in the leveling process) has been severly limited.

I completely disagree. Luck has nothing to do with making money using crafting crew skills.

 

I play on The Harbinger server and make blue quality item modifications (armoring, mods, augments, working towards hilts and enhancements) and they sell constantly. And on average I net 120% profit: materials run well less than 5k and they sell for between 10k and 15k. And this has been consistent both pre and post 2.0; pre-2.0 I sold grade 22/level 49 stuff at the same cost and profit as I sell grade 28/level 53-55 stuff.

 

My point is that the best available is not always the most profitable. Take a step back, look at markets that are not in the best available and I guarantee you will find items that sell consistently and persistently.

 

As for making best available for oneself... I have played many MMOs and the fact is that in many, if not most of them, the best crafted gear is designed to be entry level to end-game content. I have simply accepted this truth and moved on. I have further accepted that if I do not raid I do not need the best gear available; second or even third best is more than good enough to handle anything outside of raiding.

 

Then I fail to see your point.

 

The guy doing Flashpoints with his 3 mates shouldn't have access to the same gear as people who run Ops? I've never understood the attitude.

it is a matter of unintended consequences. As stated above, motivation to succeed in end-game content is both working as a team AND getting better gear. If you provide a method of getting the best gear available other than raiding you effectively remove half the motivation for raiding in the first place.

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Why not? If people have the patience to make it and the money to buy it.

 

Locking the best gear to operation level seems backwards to me, allow people to specialise and excel in other areas and you'd have a happier player base.

I believe that the changes made to crafting were to slow down how quickly players could obtain gear.

 

Prior to 2.0, I had most of the key grade 27 dread guard schematics unlocked for Armstech, Artifice and Cybertech. In addition to doing crafting and making credits, I was taking the crits and gearing up my alts. I actually geared up 3 level 50s in almost full Best in Slot this way.

 

Meanwhile, on my main, I didn't raid quite as much, anymore. The game slowed down for me.

 

But when 2.0 dropped, I found myself running FPs regularly, as well as Ops. To date, I've only gotten one toon (mostly) fully geared up, and two others in mostly 69s. Had the grade 31 gear (Underworld) been craftable and MMGs more readily available, I can pretty much guarantee that most of my toons would be geared by now.

 

Like it or hate it, this decision from Bioware resulted in slowing down gear progression, requiring players spend more time in-game to get that gear.

 

If you don't like raiding, but want Best in Slot gear, then I suppose this affects you negatively. But when 2.2 is released, at least you'll be able to craft Underworld gear.

Edited by Khevar
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Wrong, making the top tier gear available to everyone makes end game raiding useless.

The whole point of end game raiding is to obtain the best gear available, not for everyone and their brother to buy it off the GTN.

 

Progression raiding gets you vehicles, pets, titles, achievements, and set bonuses. Letting people craft the highest tier doesn't change any of that.

 

I believe that the changes made to crafting were to slow down how quickly players could obtain gear.

 

Absolutely. I'm at the point where I am looking to get 4 Underworld token drops just so I can get marginally better enhancements. Its an absolute waste of the gear and extremely aggravating that Bioware intentionally chose to reintroduce the Rakata optimization grind.

Edited by dinwitt
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