She's Crafty!

[kildorn]

I actually have the opinion that armoring is overpowered, because of how easily I can match the commendation/instance gear. Every time I hit a new armor level, I immediately swap out all my gear to the new tier. If I wanted to do that via commendations I'd be at it for a week trying to get enough. From looking at the commendation items, armoring allows you to wear a rating one level before the commendation gear would open it up. Not sure if that is just a temporary quirk though. I'd have a rating 96 armor mod with a minlevel of 39, and a rating 96 commendation armor piece with a minlevel of 40.

[ajax34i]

But, um, if you don't like the armor piece they give as a reward, you can take the commendation points, right?  And then you make the commendation points worthless by spending credits instead, to level up a craft skill and to gather mats.  Seems counter-productive.

[luckton]

Plus, pretty much every heroic quest on a planet rewards multiple commendations. Since those heroics are also repeatable daily, it shouldn't take that long.

[Sky]

Craftards please add your crew skills into the member notes field after your name.

[kildorn]

But, um, if you don't like the armor piece they give as a reward, you can take the commendation points, right?  And then you make the commendation points worthless by spending credits instead, to level up a craft skill and to gather mats.  Seems counter-productive.

You can't buy a full suit of commendation gear on any planets I've seen. So you're pretty much spending all your points to buy 3-4 items at the end of a planet for you and your companion of choice.

Armortech avoids that by simply spending 2 commendations/item on mods, and making their own set of blue armor mods of equal quality. And then buying epic random chests instead <3

[Merusk]

No planet is a one-stop-shop, true, but each planet has a different item as oranges.  Nar Shaddaa is Helms, Balmoraa was - I think - boots, etc.

I've never felt gimped with my slowly-growing supply of oranges.  Plus I'll be able to fully-mod w/ blues & Purples once I hit 50 since I'm cybertech.

[kildorn]

Oh, that's entirely what I do. I fully use oranges, and try to have a set for me and my companion of choice. Then I buy or make the mods to upgrade them as I go. Cybertech makes that pretty trivial to do imo.

[Thrawn]

I read a thread this morning on the SWTOR boards complaining about this, actually.  A skill 400 slicer was bitching that the best mission reward he could get from slicing was just giving him lockboxes with random greens that sold for less than the mission cost.  Was more profitable to run the previous tier missions.

Uh, I'm 400 slicing and ALL of my missions rewards give me a lockbox that has about 1k - 8k credits in it.  He must also be doing the augment missions instead of just lockbox missions.  The augment rewards are terrible.  I've made about 30k pure profit tonight already just from running slicing on 3 companions while I'm working on something else in the house.  Slicing is just a broken money fountain, at level 26 after already buying my mount and skill I'm sitting around 250k credits currently.

[Surlyboi]

Share the wealth, budday! 

[Sky]

What sucks is that was a well-known issue in the beta. Hell, my first beta character I only played to 20 was rolling in dough and buying all kinds of stuff.

Versus my level 31 BH who has always been and is still flat broke.

[Mazakiel]

It's the game helping to keep you in proper character for a bounty hunter.  Always dead broke and hoping for the big payoff with the next job. 

[Thrawn]

Share the wealth, budday! 

I'm sharing how to get the wealth, that's good enough for me. 

[Merusk]

Hm.. I'm 26 now and only have 30k credits after buying my speeder.   Clearly my need for a companion and only having 2 is holding me back from earning big bucks.   That or you've got a lot of /played hours without leveling.

[Threash]

At higher levels slicing you get maybe a 2k profit on a 30 min mission.  Moderate rewards are a loss, abundants break even and I've never seen any higher than that on the 49/50 bracket so you end up running the 2 lower levels for rich/bountiful lockboxes.  Crazy profit at the lower levels, mostly useless at endgame.  Also I'm fairly sure it got nerfed within the last 48 hours.

[Merusk]

Yeah I finally hit the 49-50 tier yesterday.  A 1415c mission was netting me 1598-1830.  Meanwhile the Rich mission one tier down cost me 2025c and got me 5668c.   Could just be because I'm only 29 but we'll see. 

Still probably the best craft to have and run constantly either way, nerfed returns or not.   A bout of crafting and purchasing of purple L49 schematics put me down to about 15k creds yesterday and an hour or two of running 2 companions and doing some space missions & questing has me up at 60k again.

[Maledict]

The end missions are useless. If you want to maximise profit / time, it's the tier 3 and 4 bountiful / rich missions that offer the fastest profit rate.

Watching the people who have slicing knot themselves into contortions trying to defend it and justify the gain is amusing though. It's utterly broken and need stunning into a money sink like all the other craft skills, but until it is I'm going to keep abusing it.

[Kitsune]

Slicing isn't a crafting skill, it's a gathering skill.  Gathering skills are never money sinks, that would be stupid.  Crafting skills shouldn't be money sinks either, but that's how they tend to work out in practice, sadly.

[Maledict]

Right now apart from maybe treasure hunting all the othercraft skills are money sinks. The materials I earn from scavenging / underworld trading do not over the cost of running the mission. Maybe when the AH is turned into something usebable by humans rather than 6 handed hummingbirds, but for now every tradeskills costs money in my experience, gathering or crafting.

[Kitsune]

That's the economy's fault, not the skills'.  Gathering raw materials should be a way to turn time into money; if it costs more than you can sell the parts for, the auction value of the parts has been set too low by the people doing the selling.

[Tannhauser]

I dropped Slicing, but I feel I still have plenty of money.  At level 31 I'm crafting like crazy and still have cash.  One reason is that my items are selling well.  I can currently craft items I'm not high enough to use.  That's good, it means I can keep outfitting myself with my own creations.

[Threash]

The end missions are useless. If you want to maximise profit / time, it's the tier 3 and 4 bountiful / rich missions that offer the fastest profit rate.

Watching the people who have slicing knot themselves into contortions trying to defend it and justify the gain is amusing though. It's utterly broken and need stunning into a money sink like all the other craft skills, but until it is I'm going to keep abusing it.

Why should it be a money sink when making money is the only thing it is good for? it doesn't help with any crafting skill, if it doesn't make money it has zero reason to exist.  You are trading the ability to craft anything for yourself for the money to buy it.

[Maledict]

That's the sort of response I was referring too earlier...

Firstly, slicing does give other things. It gives blue and epic crafting missions, cybernetic schematics and augments - and augments are one of the few tradeskilling items that might actually have value at 50, unlike a lot of the tradeskills.

Secondly, if it *didnt* do anything else other than give money - then just remove it from the game!

Thirdly - it doesn't prevent you crafting other things. Other than biochem, crafting doesn't produce anything soul bound at all so you can just spread it over your atls. And you earn so much with slicing you can just buy the raw materials you need and still come out ahead on cash.

It's these sort of justifications that just show how silly the skill is. Pretty much every MMO has had a tradeskill bug at some point which allowed people to make free cash. TOR has an entire skill broken and so show this is fine and should be kept! ;-)

A sign of how out of sync the skill is the quest rewards you get. I'll receive an email from a Darth thanking me for saving their world, and I'll get 300 credits as an attachment. Woohoo - I'm earning almost 100 credits a *minute* from slicing on one character alone. Slicing removes any concern for money out of the game, gives far more cash than anything else you can do before 50 by a long way, and doesn't cost you anything. It's clearly just broken.

[Threash]

It might give other things but it doesn't let you craft anything, you need all three skills to craft and slicing doesn't match up with anything.  The other things it gives you are also basically for money making.  Making free cash is not a bug, it is the whole god damn point of the skill.

[rattran]

After RE'ing 118 blue mods over the levels, I finally got a purple schematic. Yes, I'm keeping a tally on the desk. 7% RE schematic rate on greens so far.

Not impressed.

[Murgos]

That's the sort of response I was referring too earlier...

Firstly, slicing does give other things. It gives blue and epic crafting missions, cybernetic schematics and augments - and augments are one of the few tradeskilling items that might actually have value at 50, unlike a lot of the tradeskills.

Secondly, if it *didnt* do anything else other than give money - then just remove it from the game!

Thirdly - it doesn't prevent you crafting other things. Other than biochem, crafting doesn't produce anything soul bound at all so you can just spread it over your atls. And you earn so much with slicing you can just buy the raw materials you need and still come out ahead on cash.

It's these sort of justifications that just show how silly the skill is. Pretty much every MMO has had a tradeskill bug at some point which allowed people to make free cash. TOR has an entire skill broken and so show this is fine and should be kept! ;-)

This whole line of thinking makes no sense.  The third one isn't even true and the first and second one don't defend your point that slicing is broken they actually claim the opposite.

It takes two mission skills to develop any crafting skill and the only reason you can get cheap materials is because the game is 2 weeks old and prices haven't settled.  It's also not true for every skill, have you looked at the prices for the Metals from Underworld Contacts?  The level 1 mats are selling for 400 each on my server, that's ~300 credits a minute at level 11 (2 mats in 3 minutes).  People are claiming 300k a night income at low levels off of selling excess materials on the AH.  What's funding that?  Slicers buying mats at way over priced levels is what.

Slicings not broken, it's the engine driving the economy.

e: Also, I disagree with the basic premise that if it's not a punch in the dick it must not be working correctly.

[Fordel]

After RE'ing 118 blue mods over the levels, I finally got a purple schematic. Yes, I'm keeping a tally on the desk. 7% RE schematic rate on greens so far.

Not impressed.

BioChem is way more forgiving then that, I usually only have to RE 5-10 blue medpacks for a purple one.

[Thrawn]

Slicings not broken, it's the engine driving the economy.

I just don't get how a skill that PAYS ME to level it and find crafting recipes and crafting missions isn't broken.  Those items will never have any value.

[Maledict]

Slicings not broken, it's the engine driving the economy.

I just don't get how a skill that PAYS ME to level it and find crafting recipes and crafting missions isn't broken.  Those items will never have any value.

This is my point. People are bending themselves into *ridiculous* contortions to justify something that in any other MMO would instantly be labelled as broken and stupid. Slicing is happily separating the server into haves and have nots, and the fact that people are relying on trickle down economics to balance it out is silly. There is nothing stopping people with slicing ALSO getting other professions that generate cash.

The game clearly isn't balanced around people with slicing generating so much free cash so early on. Bioware have said they are going to do something about it, so hopefully they will before servers become too full of people with a ridiculous head start on cash due to a broken tradeskill.

[Tannhauser]

After RE'ing 118 blue mods over the levels, I finally got a purple schematic. Yes, I'm keeping a tally on the desk. 7% RE schematic rate on greens so far.

Not impressed.

BioChem is way more forgiving then that, I usually only have to RE 5-10 blue medpacks for a purple one.

Same goes for me with Cybertech, about 5-10 blue RE's for a purpz.

[Threash]

Slicings not broken, it's the engine driving the economy.

I just don't get how a skill that PAYS ME to level it and find crafting recipes and crafting missions isn't broken.  Those items will never have any value.

This is my point. People are bending themselves into *ridiculous* contortions to justify something that in any other MMO would instantly be labelled as broken and stupid. Slicing is happily separating the server into haves and have nots, and the fact that people are relying on trickle down economics to balance it out is silly. There is nothing stopping people with slicing ALSO getting other professions that generate cash.

The game clearly isn't balanced around people with slicing generating so much free cash so early on. Bioware have said they are going to do something about it, so hopefully they will before servers become too full of people with a ridiculous head start on cash due to a broken tradeskill.

You can argue it's a bad idea to have a profession that produces money all you want but it is certainly not broken when it does the one thing it is designed to do.  Slicing can either make a decent amount of money or it has no reason to exist, and at this point i seriously doubt completely removing it is on the table.  

[kildorn]

It seems to have a reason to exist (finding schematics and augments), but I disagree with "if it doesn't make dickloads of money it's useless" because down that path lies "if my tank isn't invulnerable it's useless" and "if my dps can't oneshot things it's useless"

[Teleku]

It's also not true for every skill, have you looked at the prices for the Metals from Underworld Contacts?  The level 1 mats are selling for 400 each on my server, that's ~300 credits a minute at level 11 (2 mats in 3 minutes).  People are claiming 300k a night income at low levels off of selling excess materials on the AH.  What's funding that?  Slicers buying mats at way over priced levels is what.

This is probably highly variable though.  I am also taking the Scavenging/Cybertech/Slicing route.  I went to look up what the level 1 Underworld Mats were trading for last night on my server, and they were going for 300 for stack of 10, which is less than 3 slicing boxes (or one if I get lucky) at my current level.  Not sure how it scales up from here, or how the markets will pan out as the craziness of launch imbalances go away, but high prices are not universal so far.

[sam, an eggplant]

Prices aren't universal because it's not an efficient market. It's not an efficient market because the GTN is such a piece of shit that people that normally play the AH metagame are walking away in disgust.

Most people rightclick their items to sell and accept the GTN's default buyout price, because it's just so incredibly painful to do it properly.

[rattran]

After RE'ing 118 blue mods over the levels, I finally got a purple schematic. Yes, I'm keeping a tally on the desk. 7% RE schematic rate on greens so far.

Not impressed.

BioChem is way more forgiving then that, I usually only have to RE 5-10 blue medpacks for a purple one.

Same goes for me with Cybertech, about 5-10 blue RE's for a purpz.

WTF than? Does the rng hate me? Is there some 3rd factor I'm missing?

[Teleku]

Man, if Nuffle is bitch slapping you this bad in swtor, you should probably never ever play Blood Bowl.  

Edit:  To add, so far on my RE of green Cybertech mods, I've gotten the blue schematic about every 3-8 times.