There seems to be a lot of misinformation about Slicing and it's nerf. I know it's probably a waste of time but I figured I'd try to explain what is going on as best I can.

 

Let me start by explaining what slicing is and what it is for.

 

There are three types of trade skills in SWTOR. Crafting skills turn raw materials into products which players use themselves or sell for profit. Gathering skills gather materials from nodes. Mission skills run missions to recieve materials. Slicing is a gathering skill.

 

The confusion comes from the fact that slicers thought they should be making money off running missions with a gathering skill. This was never intended to be the case. Gathering skill missions are credit sinks. You can pay large amounts of credits in exchange for raw materials. If a Scavenger or Archeologist runs a mission, they recieve materials for far above market price. They don't rely on missions to make credits, they make their credits from gathering from nodes.

 

This is the intended design for Slicing as well. Bioware doesn't want players to be able to press a button, wait, and recieve money. They want Slicers to make their money by harvesting nodes. A lot of slicers have complained that nodes are too difficult to come by, but this is a result of so many people going Slicing in order to benefit from the missions. If everyone went Scavenging, then Scavengers would have the same problem, it isn't anything inherently wrong with Slicing, and it will balance itself out naturally as people shift away from it to new skills.

 

On the other hand, Mission skills do not have nodes, players need to run missions to recieve the products. So, Mission skills had to run missions, and gathering skills needed to gather nodes, but Slicing was the best of both worlds, having both nodes to gather and profitable missions. This clearly wasn't be design.

 

Next I want to explain why it had to be changed.

 

Slicing would have lead to rapid inflation, that is, everyone would have had far more credits then they knew what to do with. The cost of player made things would rapidly rise and become out of sync with training costs and other expenses. We would see player services and goods priced too high for those items to be purchased by anyone but established level 50s.

 

Why would this have happened? Quite simply the problem with slicing missions was there was no dimishing returns on additional players doing it. Nodes are a finite resource, only so many exist, and they only respawn so quickly. The server essentailly creates X amount of resources an hour and players can never get more then that amount. More players simply means splitting that same amount up more times.

 

Missions are entirely different. The game doesn't care who many missions are gone on, the costs and rewards are identical. There is no competition for resources, and no limit on how many can be created. For mission skills this is ok because of supply and demand. If I take Underworld trading on 1 character, then leveled up a second and also took UT, I wouldn't make 2x the profit because there is finite demand for those products. By increasing supply without increasing demand I'm simply lowering the value of what I produce. It's a built in balance. If everyone took UT, those products would plumet in value, turning a profit would become impossible and people would switch to different trade skills until it balanced itself back out.

 

This would never had happened in slicing because it produces raw credits. Having 2 slicers running missions was twice as much profit as having 1 slicer running missions. Having 8 was 8 times as much profit. Unlike with UT and flooding the market, there was no reason not to have every character you had with slicing.

 

So instead of the server creating X amount of product in nodes and splitting it between players, we had player directly creating credits with no limit or checks. It was an untenable situation.

 

If slicing was free credits then there would be no reason to do anything else for credits, especally considering inflation would mean the amount of credits recieved from doing dailies or grinding mobs would be undervalued. When everyone has more credits then they know what to do with it means no one bothers to do their dailies, to gather items, to grind mobs, to actually go out in the world and play the game. Maintaining a balance between credits entering the world and credits leaving the world is absolutely vital to the survival of any game, and leaving slicing as it was would have made that entirely impossible.

 

There are some who may feel there is a lack of credits entering the world now with Slicing nerfed. Even if this were the case, it would be better fixed by doing things like reducing training costs or increasing quest rewards, rather then returning slicing to the way it was. Also keep in mind there are far more credit sinks while leveling then there are at max level, and currently the vast majority of players are still leveling.

 

I'm sorry for those effected, but it had to be done. There will be a short term deflation, and there will be more competition for other nodes as people switch, but it had to be done. There was simply no way to maintain a healthy economy with the way Slicing was.

The fact is the BW has went too far. You are wrong in saying that Slicing is a 100% gathering professions. have you tried slicing. Not all the time people are ready to buy the junk that you get from low level missions.

 

But in actual gathering professions you can sell pretty much what you gather. Whether you gather from nodes or send you companions. We are actually losing money right now from slicing because the nerf has been huge.

You are losing money running missions. You were never intended to make money running missions. You make money harvesting nodes.

You make some valid points. However there won't be a healty economy in a game that doesn't require you to buy anything from the economy to level your character effectively.

 

I don't see how you can claim that you know how slicing was intended to be, you're not a dev, at least not from what I can see on your profile and therefore you are just voicing your opinion on how you feel slicing should have been and then comparing it too how it is now.

 

I can get all my gear from commendation vendors, and then the 1 skill im working on biochem I can take bio-analysis and diplomacy and then I have no reason to go buy anything else from the GTN. Also I have no reason to sell on it either, I can gather all the mats I need to make what I want by myself and then I can play the game all by myself.

 

Slicing was the only reason I went and bought stuff off the GTN, I had some extra money after buying my skills, and I decided that instead of using commendation badges on upgrades, I'll go see if I can get some better stuff player built on the GTN, which I did, but from here on out I am simply going to stick with commendation badges because I can't afford to level, do all my skilling , work on my crafting skill and then go spend money on the GTN.

 

Slicing provided extra money yes, and that extra money went into the market, sure there is the 1% who did nothing but save and make themselves a lump of credits but they are just that rare. I used slicing and I have 40k to my name now at level 33. My new skills cost 10k each and my repair bills are costing 1k per death pretty much.

 

Now that slicing is gone, the market will begin to decline because people who want to craft things will just gather all the mats themselves and make their own products. You're all looking at slicing from a greedy and entitled prespective! If I didn't take slicing and don't have 100k by 25 then the other people shouldn't have a ton of creds either!

You are losing money running missions. You were never intended to make money running missions. You make money harvesting nodes.

 

If that was true then it would have been nerfed before launch

Excellent post.

You are losing money running missions. You were never intended to make money running missions. You make money harvesting nodes.

 

Flawed statement. If it was never intended to make money by running missions, then why would they have made missions that return credit cases? They could have made it so that missions only reward augments and missions for other professions. But no, BW added possibility to send companion to get raw credits.

 

You have good points but this is not one of them.

 

My opinion is that maybe a nerf was needed, but it might have been a bit too steep one. But it could be BW's strategy; There is now more slicers than intended, so they make the missions unprofitable until the amount of slicers is balanced again, and then make slicing again profitable, but not so much as to again screw up the balance

Edited December 28, 2011 by kuunkulta

If that was true then it would have been nerfed before launch

 

Supposing you are correct, then we could say you are no longer intended to profit off missions and are now intended to profit off nodes. Slightly different I admit but ultimately the same for our current situation.

If a Scavenger or Archeologist runs a mission, they recieve materials for far above market price. They don't rely on missions to make credits, they make their credits from gathering from nodes.

 

A lot of slicers have complained that nodes are too difficult to come by, but this is a result of so many people going Slicing in order to benefit from the missions. If everyone went Scavenging, then Scavengers would have the same problem, it isn't anything inherently wrong with Slicing, and it will balance itself out naturally as people shift away from it to new skills.

 

Slicing would have lead to rapid inflation, that is, everyone would have had far more credits then they knew what to do with.

 

I wish I got credits by gathering from nodes in scavenging.

 

In any case, you forgot the "In my opinion" at the beginning of your post. As long as this is not an official BW post, it is all your opinion and speculation.

 

As for raising prices? What a load. I saw highly priced items on the DTN and then would see the same item for cheaper than you could get it off a vendor. All I know is that now that many people are dropping the skill due to it being nerfed, I can charge 10x's on the DTN for the missions and schematics I get from it. Rarity is what causes an increase in price. That and the person posting item!

The fact is the BW has went too far. You are wrong in saying that Slicing is a 100% gathering professions. have you tried slicing. Not all the time people are ready to buy the junk that you get from low level missions.

 

But in actual gathering professions you can sell pretty much what you gather. Whether you gather from nodes or send you companions. We are actually losing money right now from slicing because the nerf has been huge.

You may have an argument that Slicing is not worthwhile, but a broken profession that few or none take is better than one that everyone takes and leads to a ruined game. By the way, I don't think anyone who runs Scavenge missions is making a profit selling materials on the market so in that same sense it is losing money.

You are losing money running missions. You were never intended to make money running missions. You make money harvesting nodes.

 

I would love to see your fact sheet on your info.

 

I am Cybertech/Scavenging/Slicing.

 

I regularly run Scavenging missions to gain the materials I need for Cyber. I can send out a companion for Grade 1-6 levels of Metals, Compounds, Flux dependent on what I need. I pay money to gain these materials. If I don't use them all, I can then take those materials to the GM and sell them for profit.

 

Slicing missions are for Lock Boxes and Augments. Read the threads, augments are pretty much crap right now. they take much longer to farm and aren't worth the credits/time spent. Lock Boxes return money. A Crit will net you a schematic or a crafting mission, but that's it. Right now the average 1000 cred mission will net you 800 credits in return with maybe a 1% chance to crit.

 

The Lock Box missions were DESIGNED to make money by running a mission. If I know that I am only getting 800 credits after spending 1000 credits and 30 min of time, then why would I do that mission? for the 1% Crit chance?

 

Vegas has better odds

 

If they wanted to introduce that kind of gambling to the game, bring in Sabbac.

 

Slicing needed nerfing, but not to this extreme

So now that I don't have the credits from slicing to buy crafted items from crafters (putting credits in their pockets), I am forced to sell the items I do get from slicing (those mission items) at a higher premium. I am also forced to sell the materials I gather from my other gather skills at a higher premium to offset the loss in income from slicing. So now I am taking more credits out of crafters pockets and the price of items have all gone up with less credits out there to go around.

So now that I don't have the credits from slicing to buy crafted items from crafters (putting credits in their pockets), I am forced to sell the items I do get from slicing (those mission items) at a higher premium. I am also forced to sell the materials I gather from my other gather skills at a higher premium to offset the loss in income from slicing. So now I am taking more credits out of crafters pockets and the price of items have all gone up with less credits out there to go around.

That sounds like how an MMO economy should work, as opposed to one where credits flood in at such a level that people can buy everything they want doing the bare minimum.

So now that I don't have the credits from slicing to buy crafted items from crafters (putting credits in their pockets), I am forced to sell the items I do get from slicing (those mission items) at a higher premium. I am also forced to sell the materials I gather from my other gather skills at a higher premium to offset the loss in income from slicing. So now I am taking more credits out of crafters pockets and the price of items have all gone up with less credits out there to go around.

 

And because I am not making money on my slicing missions I will not be spending money to buy those crafting missions from the GM. Which means that the few that people do manage to get will stagnant and be worthless.

 

Until slicing gets fixed I am hording my credits for training. I used to buy lots of UW metals for Cyber. no more of that.

The fact of the matter was that slicing was and still is freely available to everyone, therefore there is no imbalance in the economy if someone can go and make the money they need to buy something and then, someone else can use the same system to do the same thing.

 

The economy would not be balanced if only certain individuals where allowed to take slicing as a crew skill and everyone else was not allowed to do this.

 

If everyone can go and pick up slicing then everyone can make money! Therefore completely eliminating the argument that (A) "Slicers make way more money then me" and (B) "Slicers are causing an imbalance in the economy" because © "Everyone can take slicing" fixes all this, everyone can generate credits at the same pace and therefore the economy is balanced.

 

Therefore those that refused to take slicing where just limiting their own growth and causing their own problems therefore I purpose a fix for this! Nerf those that want to nerf something that everyone can use, and leave the rest of us alone.

 

The only imbalance caused by slicing was caused by those individual who refused to take this crew skill and get their handmeouts from Bioware. Star Welfare rules! Well it did.

Edited December 28, 2011 by Balinoar

You are losing money running missions. You were never intended to make money running missions. You make money harvesting nodes.

 

That argument only holds up if an orange post states that, sorry.

That argument only holds up if an orange post states that, sorry.

 

If we want to be pendantic..

 

"It is my opinion that Slicing, as a gathering profession, should not be intended to make money off running missions."

 

I've given my reasons for why that is the case, if you disagree please post your reasoning and we can discuss it.

The fact is the BW has went too far. You are wrong in saying that Slicing is a 100% gathering professions. have you tried slicing. Not all the time people are ready to buy the junk that you get from low level missions.

 

But in actual gathering professions you can sell pretty much what you gather. Whether you gather from nodes or send you companions. We are actually losing money right now from slicing because the nerf has been huge.

 

You are right, but the problem isn't having slicing reward you with more credits. Its to fix what is causing the non-credit rewards from being useless. Currently augments are worthless because there is hardly any gear out there with augment slots, and the market is flooded since everyone picked up slicing. Same for the missions and schematics, the market is flooded and there is little demand. Part of this problem will naturally go away as the supply decreases. An unnaturally high amount of people picked up slicing because the missions were unbalanced. Now more people will drop, supply will decrease to more closely match the demand. In turn, more people will focus on crafting to make money, so more gear with augment slots will show up, so demand will increase for them. And with more crafters there will be more demand for schematics. Also, more people are going to switch to mission skills, so demand will increase for missions from slicing.

 

So in reality, as Bioware is aware, nerfing the "free credits" from sending your companions out to slice will actually help slicing by increasing the demand for its products and reducing the supply.

 

I do, however, feel from my anecdotal experience that there are more balances to be made in the crafting department. I think the crit rate of crafting needs to go up so more low level gear has augment slots. Otherwise low level slicers won't have a market. Obviously at the high end augments will be a premium because people want to min/max. But at low levels, the extra few stats just isn't worth a premium. Its cheaper to wait a level and get a better standard piece of gear rather than grind out an enhanced piece and pay a premium for an augment slot. So increasing the crit rate of low level crafted gear will increase the market, and possibly increasing the rewards of augment missions slightly to either have better stats for the level or more rewards per mission to give slicers a chance at actually selling their augments at or above cost.

 

Also, the ship schematics, I think, should be buffed. They should be better than the stuff you can buy from a vendor. The OP's point of credit sinks is valid, so buying vendor parts is important, but if there is already a credit sink to acquire the schematics and materials to craft an item, then the reward needs to be be better than the vendor parts otherwise there is no point in spending the time crafting it. Buffing the ship rewards would increase demand. Also, integrating the ship combat with more of the main story line would increase demand as well. And the ship combat is FUN! Simple, but it has room for improvement. I would like to see this as well.

 

I think Bioware did the right thing to help balance the economy. Now if they just take a few more steps to add some additional value to the other crafting abilities, I think the economy will continue to grow and flourish.

 

I say all of this as a slicer. I did not pick up slicing to make "free credits". I picked up slicing because I thought it sounded like fun to be a cybertech/slicer and be able to craft ship parts, speeders, and augments. I still think it sounds like fun, I just think Bioware has a few more tweaks to make in order to create a market for those items. But "nerfing" the mission credit rewards was the correct first step.

That sounds like how an MMO economy should work, as opposed to one where credits flood in at such a level that people can buy everything they want doing the bare minimum.

 

 

I'm ok with that, but why not just take out slicing altogether than?

Flawed statement. If it was never intended to make money by running missions, then why would they have made missions that return credit cases? They could have made it so that missions only reward augments and missions for other professions. But no, BW added possibility to send companion to get raw credits.

 

You have good points but this is not one of them.

 

My opinion is that maybe a nerf was needed, but it might have been a bit too steep one. But it could be BW's strategy; There is now more slicers than intended, so they make the missions unprofitable until the amount of slicers is balanced again, and then make slicing again profitable, but not so much as to again screw up the balance

 

Its just like Treasure Hunting. You get cases with credits, and possibly gear. Slicing is credits and possibly schematics/missions.

Flawed statement. If it was never intended to make money by running missions, then why would they have made missions that return credit cases? They could have made it so that missions only reward augments and missions for other professions. But no, BW added possibility to send companion to get raw credits.

 

You have good points but this is not one of them.

 

My opinion is that maybe a nerf was needed, but it might have been a bit too steep one. But it could be BW's strategy; There is now more slicers than intended, so they make the missions unprofitable until the amount of slicers is balanced again, and then make slicing again profitable, but not so much as to again screw up the balance

 

Not as flawed as you think.

 

The option of Gathering Professions to have missions also serves the purpose of leveling your Skill when you may not have nodes to harvest or to bridge the gap between skill requirements of a previous set of nodes to the new set of nodes if you were not able to harvest enough.

 

Pretty much every Gathering Professions missions are net losses of money (on average) even though they return materials because the cost and time investments outweigh the value at which you could sell those materials for, but that still allows the mission rewards to offset the full cost of training the skill.

 

Slicing has now been brought in line with that effect, your missions now no longer guarantee free profit, but rather, offset the cost of earning the skill points with a small chance of profit.

 

Whether or not Bioware's intention of Gathering Missions or Slicing Missions to be specific as sources of profit or loss is unclear. It is entirely possible that Slicing was never intended to be this profitable relative to the other professions and merely didn't get the notice it deserved pre-launch. I mean, a holiday launch of a large scale game like this has a lot going on.

I'm looking at my slicing missions and I see half of them return credit boxes. Why would anyone send their companions out on those? Since the nerf, I've lost credits sending mine out on them.

 

I understand the point that slicing is meant to be a gathering skill and that pursuing slicing nodes is where the real profit lies.

 

But it would be nice to have a reason to send companions on slicing missions. I have reasons to send my companions on archeology missions: they bring back crafting materials that I can use or sell. Whats the point of slicing missions that return credit boxes? To throw credits away?

 

Other than to level slicing, whats the point of slicing missions that return credit boxes?

The issue is not that it was broken or even that it needed needing. The trouble is that it made it to live broken then, within two weeks was made completely pointless. It is the fact that myself and many others wasted time getting the skill to 400. It is the fear that this is just the first sign of brute force "balance" fixes to come.

 

Slicing was broken. It should have been addressed in beta.

Excellent post.

 

All points are valid. Some people are just too short sighted.

 

Imagine 1 year later, veteran players have billions of credits from slicing and trading with slicers. The game will be daunting to any new players.

Because it's been reiterated in several areas around the community, I'm going to quote what I think is the best illustration.

 

Source found here

 

--------------------------------

 

I've studied economics at university and earned a double major in business related fields. This is my two cents on how the SWTOR economy will handle the slicing nerf. Yes, this is prompted by the slicing nerf. Whatever your personal opinions are on slicing, very, VERY few people in this subreddit seem to grasp the fact that the SWTOR economy is about to seriously deflate.

 

Most people seem to be of the persuation that "lol you n00bs that took slicing should just pick a different profession and sell your mats to make money like the rest of us DERP" but what people aren't thinking about is that economics is rarely that simple. Most people that were making an excellent living on crafted items were doing so because slicing was the ONLY way, other than questing and PvP, of bringing more money into the SWTOR economy.

 

Now that slicing is gone, demand for GTN goods is going to plummet, meaning that prices will fall drastically and those people who are bragging about how much money they make selling implants and the like are going to feel the pinch just as bad if not worse than the players who had slicing as a profession. The influx of currency in this game was cut by, on average, somewhere around 70% with the slicing nerf taking into account the "buffer" from PvP and questing cash influx. That means prices, on average, will drop by approximately the same amount. It's not the GTN that's the problem, though...if prices fall so be it, everything will just even out, right?

Wrong.

 

Exorbitantly prices skill training, NOT including ridiculously priced speeder training, is far more important to players than buying goods from the GTN. As a result, players will be saving their money for those instead. THIS is where the true problem lies. At least if money is being spent in the GTN, it stays (mostly, after commission) in the SWTOR economy; skill training removes that money from the economy altogether. With so little true expendable income in the game, GTN goods may well fall further than 70% of their current values, making earning an in game living MUCH more difficult for EVERYONE.

 

This is why one of two things must happen in the near future:

• Slicing gets buffed again, but no where near where it was prior to the nerf. Slicing WAS somewhat OP, but the current nerf removes far too many credits from the economy to keep it stable at current skill training costs.
  
• Skill training costs will be significantly lowered. The only way for the games economy to properly survive after the slicing nerf if it remains unchanged is to lower the cost of skills to keep more credits in the SWTOR economy.
  
• Vendor prices when selling items/quest rewards/pvp rewards will rise to raise the influx of cash into the economy.
  

 

Thoughts?

 

tl;dr - The slicing nerf "ceteris paribus" (there was a definite need for a nerf, just not this big) is unsustainable and I've listed three alternatives.

Edited December 28, 2011 by ichebu