Finally had some time to run a larger analysis on the Professional Training active perk. We re-tested it with crafting and also with gathering missions. Since there is quite a lot of data I will split the two types of tests into two posts. This one studies the effects of Professional Training on gathering crew skill missions.

 

Professional Training

Tooltip: Increases Critical rate for all Crew Skills by 5% for 1 hour. Cooldown 6 hours.

 

Crafting Test Setup

• 8 Companions With Level 50 Influence & Legacy Of Crafting III Character Perk
  
• The test is simply to run 1000 level 1 and 2 gathering missions and count the number of items produced
  

 

Gathered Items

Without Pro Training - 1000 Missions

Total: 4,552

 

With Pro Training - 1000 Missions

Total: 4,718

 

Results

• (4718 - 4552) / 4552 x 100 = 3.64% increase in gathered items with Professional Training activated
  
• Running 1000 missions with the perk enabled gathered an extra 166 items
  

 

Crafting Results Summary

Professional Training does appear to affect gathering missions although only by around 3.6% instead of the advertised 5%. That is still quite good considering the top level passive gathering perk "Critical Gathering III" only adds 3%. Keep in mind the difference between the two perks is that the passive one affects gathering missions 24/7 were as Professional Training only lasts for 1 hour. In the first post of this thread I am going to mark this perk as broken since it is not giving the full 5% it advertises.

I tried to simulate the crafting test in a program. I used 25% crit rate without perk, and 30% with. Based on a few tests I think your sample size is still too small.

 

After a few attempts at 1240 items, I got a no perk count of 1578 and a perk count of 1583, which is a 0.4% increase. Obviously a massive outlier, but it shows this size may not be reliable. My attempts varied quite a lot, going up to 7% increase at times. With 100000 items, it did give almost exactly a 5% increase.

 

I find it odd that your test gave about a 40% crit rate without the perk though. Maybe the crew skill tooltip is still wrong?

I'm happy to go with your 5% results if you tested it with 10k (computed). We found it a hassle to have to keep taking breaks between perk cooldowns I'll remove the BROKEN tag as I don't want to put people off from using it. What we're both sure about is that using the Professional Training perk is a benefit to crafting and let's face it, it's not like there is anything better to pick most weeks for that forward perk slot

Someone nudged me to say that the conquest point values have changed so the thread needs updating. I'll get on the update over the next week or two. Some other things changed as well like the loved/hated Recharge Drones no longer working in PvP.

 

It would help loads if any of you can post the updated CQ point values or indicate anything else that has changed.

 

Thanks

Does the Operations Profiteer I/II work on all mobs, not just the bosses or completion of the op, inside an operation? "Increases XP, Renown Points, and Reputation rewards from Operations by 7%" ?

Should be applying to everything that happens inside the op. Have you noticed it not working as advertised and if so what difference have you seen?

I've updated the "Crafting Conquest II" perk to indicate that the conquest objective it unlocked called "Crafting Rally - Part II" is no longer a daily repeatable. With patch 6.1.1 it became a once a week per legacy objective.

There is currently a bug with active ability guild perks that you can drag to Quick Slots, like "Professional Training". A lot of people are finding that when they relog the perk has been removed from the Quick Slot. Even if it's re-added then it will be removed again the next time they login.

Thank you to Riku for chasing up what the Harvesting Yield perks do. I've added the entry:

 

Harvesting Yield I-II-III

• Tooltip says: "Increases harvesting yield"
  
• Customer services confirmed that it does not increase the harvesting yield of what you are actually harvesting. Instead it just increased your chance of getting a Reinforcement Component when you harvest.
  

Edited May 13, 2020 by UlaVii

Reputable III still only gives a 10% bonus

Do you know what the real values are for level I and II?

Nope, sorry. My guess would be that they work and it's just III giving the same as II.

Something in guild perks tied to crafting (Fortune set I believe but not 100% sure its causal, and does not appear to be sufficient on its own) results in abnormally high crit rates for missions and crafting.

 

I have characters that get a 100% effective crit rate (sustained as long as they are logged in) for grey difficulty missions and crafting (crafting UI display in-game shows 84% for crafting / 79% for missions), though not consistent across characters with same buffs (some only get 70-80% crit rate even though same individual and guild perks active), though getting higher than expected (should be max of ~53% with all personal / guild buffs) is consistent as long as the character is in a guild using the Fortune set (even with different individual perks selected).

Edited August 30, 2020 by DawnAskham

Tested out Tax Evasion III and updated the entry for it:

 

Tax Evasion I-II-III (Reduces GTN commission fee)

• There is no visual indication of the saving % when you list items
  
• The perk tooltips just say "slightly/moderately/significantly"
  
• Standard GTN commission is 8%
  
• Level III reduces your GTN commission fee to 5.5999%
  

 

Example:

 

• With the standard 8% GTN tax, if you sell an item for 1 million credits then the system takes 80k from you.
  
• With Tax Evasion III it would take 55,999 credits from you.
  

 

The perk costs 2 million credits so you have to sell enough to offset that. In my opinion it's cheeky of EA to increase the GTN tax from 6% to 8% and then sell us a temporary perk that barely reduces it past the original fee.

Edited October 13, 2020 by UlaVii

My previous tests showed that Tax Evasion Level III reduces your GTN commission fee to 5.5999%.

 

Thanks to Riku letting me use Tax Evasion Level I in one of his guilds tonight I was able to calculate that it reduces your GTN commission fee to 7.1999%.

 

To put some real numbers to that:

 

No Tax Evasion - 8% Standard GTN Commission

Sell an item for 100,000 credits ~ Lose 8000 credits in GTN tax

Sell an item for 1,000,000 credits ~ Lose 80,000

Sell an item for 10,000,000 credits ~ Lose 800,000

Sell an item for 100,000,000 credits ~ Lose 8,000,000

Sell an item for 1,000,000,000 credits ~ Lose 80,000,000

 

Tax Evasion Level 1 - 7.1999% - Costs 750k to activate

Sell an item for 100,000 credits ~ Lose 7199 credits in GTN tax

Sell an item for 1,000,000 credits ~ Lose 71,999

Sell an item for 10,000,000 credits ~ Lose 719,990

Sell an item for 100,000,000 credits ~ Lose 7,199,900

Sell an item for 1,000,000,000 credits ~ Lose 71,999,000

 

Tax Evasion Level 2 - ?% - Costs 1.25m to activate

 

Tax Evasion Level 3 - 5.5999% - Costs 2m to activate

Sell an item for 100,000 credits ~ Lose 5599 credits in GTN tax

Sell an item for 1,000,000 credits ~ Lose 55,999

Sell an item for 10,000,000 credits ~ Lose 559,990

Sell an item for 100,000,000 credits ~ Lose 5,599,900

Sell an item for 1,000,000,000 credits ~ Lose 55,999,000

 

Due to the cost of activating one of these perks, it's not worth it if your guild is going to sell less than 100m worth of items during the perk cycle and even then, only if you pick Tax Evasion 3.

 

On the other hand, if you're one of the small number of people who regularly make sales worth billions of credits then you will be saving between 8-24m for each 1bn which means it's great as a passive perk for you.

 

Level 2 was available in the last perk cycle. If any of you have it enabled can you test it out and post back with the % please. The test is really simple:

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by UlaVii

Now Tax Evasion II is available again I got to test it out which means we now have all the values for the small, moderate and significant GTN commission savings:

 

Tax Evasion I-II-III (Reduces GTN commission fee)

• There is no visual indication of the saving % when you list items and the deposit does not change
  
• The perk tooltips just say "slightly/moderately/significantly"
  
• Standard GTN commission is 8%
  
• Level I "slightly" reduces your GTN commission fee to 7.1999%
  
• Level II "moderately" reduces your GTN commission fee to 6.61157%
  
• Level III "significantly" reduces your GTN commission fee to 5.5999%
  

Edited February 16, 2021 by UlaVii

Tax Evasion perk defeats the purpose of the GTN Fee as a credit sink to remove credits from the economy.

 

Bioware wants to remove credits from the economy, I don't know why they would have this perk available other than lack of ideas.

Edited February 21, 2021 by Falensawino

Tax Evasion perk defeats the purpose of the GTN Fee as a credit sink to remove credits from the economy.

 

Bioware wants to remove credits from the economy, I don't know why they would have this perk available other than lack of ideas.

 

It does seem to be self defeating if they want more credit sinks in the game

You are both welcome to send me all your credits. I will take on that burden for you, no thanks required

 

Credit sinks are meaningless when nothing is done about the inflow.

 

The general chat channels and mail system are heavily used by credit sellers which appeals to a lot of people who just want to dip into the game every few months to check out anything new or catch up with friends without spending time and effort earning credits to buy the latest shiny things. Some of the guilds who do mass ninja inviting openly discuss credit selling in their Discord servers so a lot of new players see it as normal.

 

There are also the in-game things the devs add that massively offset credit sinks. After they increased the GTN tax by another 2% they added in the new shiny material that drops from ranked PvP which earns the win traders billions of credits. They don't care about rating or PvP at all, it's all about quick easy credits. You can see some guilds doing this on Darth Malgus around 04:30 GMT. They also /w other people and ask if they want to join in with the lure of fast credits. There will always be people doing this when the devs give them such easily obtainable expensive credit earning items.

 

Then there's "refer a friend" links. Some people make a fortune from this by using the CC to buy crates and expensive items which they resell on the GTN or via /trade. It's common to see people spamming Fleet and planet chat with messages offering 30 million upwards for people to use their referral link. They do that because they are making so much more in the long run. I mean sure, every stranger is a friend you haven't met yet but come on

 

Some of the biggest credit earners in game sell their credits to the gold sellers in return for real life money. It takes them very little effort and is an easy source of income. I doubt it's a lot of money but that really depends on where & how you live.

 

The people most affected in a negative way by credit sinks are the ones who are not doing these things but it's far easier for the devs to change a % value on the GTN than deal with the real issues directly.

Edited February 21, 2021 by UlaVii

This seemed like a silly perk so it's took me a while to test it out. 750k and 50 commendations to show that yet another perk does not work

 

Distance Looter (Objective Image)

• Normal loot distance is 10 meters.
  
• BROKEN: Does not change distance.
  

Tax evasion does indeed work, but their definition of "significant" and mine are quite different. I've had some cheap skate bosses in the past that use their definition. I.E. 1% raise being significant.

 

I ran the tax evasion III and saw about a 2% decrease in fees. Significant to me would be 4 - 5%. Having said that, if you have significant goods moving thought the gtn it makes a measurable difference. 2% of 5 billion credits is still 100 million discount. Do that each week and it adds up to 5.2 billion credits a year. So while I disagree with the "significant" it is better than nothing. The frustrating part is how perks become available. I want to run crafting crit and tax evasion all the time, but once they expire they go on some type of cooldown and are no longer available. Being presented with alternative options are no perks since they are not something I would use or want. Anyone know the secret of the perk rotations?

Edited April 14, 2021 by Drew_Braxton

I ran the tax evasion III and saw about a 2% decrease in fees. Significant to me would be 4 - 5%.

I included the numbers for Tax Evasion I-II-III in the main post based on tests I ran:

 

• Standard GTN commission is 8%
  
• Level I "slightly" reduces your GTN commission fee to 7.1999%
  
• Level II "moderately" reduces your GTN commission fee to 6.61157%
  
• Level III "significantly" reduces your GTN commission fee to 5.5999%
  

It's a good perk if you generate a lot of credits from GTN sales but it's still a slap in the face when you consider the tax used to be 6%

 

The frustrating part is how perks become available. I want to run crafting crit and tax evasion all the time, but once they expire they go on some type of cooldown and are no longer available. Being presented with alternative options are no perks since they are not something I would use or want. Anyone know the secret of the perk rotations?

The perks rotate on a two week schedule. There is a link at the very top of the first post that shows you the schedule and allows you to sort by name, cycle, etc.

What are your general thoughts on going for Fortune vs. Zeal?

 

Zeal seems better numbers-wise, but a lot of players won't use it and it doesn't work in PvP+NiM so requires carrying more gear setups. It appears once you go Zeal you can't really undo it or afford having it drop for more than an hour as it would mess it up people's characters.

 

Fortune seems to have better perks, Ops Profiteer to reward your guild ops runs with Grand Chance Cubes and Tax Evasion to entice traders (and financiers) into your guild. Zeal's perks seem generally weaker with the bonus movement speed?

Edited May 11, 2021 by Eli_Porter

What are your general thoughts on going for Fortune vs. Zeal?

In my guild we always use the Fortune set bonus (+5% crit).

 

The problem with Zeal (+5% alacrity) is that it only helps with energy regeneration, not with GCD. To really optimize it, you'd have to modify your gear and replace 5% alacrity mods with crit but the problem then is that whenever you run PvP or NiM ops or the guild forgot to keep the Zeal set bonus active or you send your gear to an alt who is not in the guild, your GCD will be wrong.

Edited May 11, 2021 by Jerba

We go with the Zeal bonus in all 3 of our guilds. One of our Imp guilds has perks which are more CQ orientated, the other focuses on perks that are geared for raiders like Ops Bio and Efficient Repairs. Our Rep one is a balance with some wild cards like Tax Evasion III. We have 15 raid teams and they seem to do well with the setup.