The "Slicing Was Nerfed" Thread

[Ratman_tf]

Gah. I traded TH for Slicing since everyone said sliciing was hax. I haven't had a chance to level it and abuse it though. 

[caladein]

So far, slicing is still turning a profit for me, but missions take half an hour or more to run so it'll be a while before I have enough missions run to see if I'm just getting lucky on these first few or not.

You should make a profit with Grades 1-5.  Grade 6 is looking like it might break even at best on credits, but it does give you the Grade 6 missions which are probably the only ones people will care about down the line.

[Threash]

Looks bountiful missions barely make a profit now, hardly worth keeping it.

[Teleku]

Was all the money from slicing coming from missions?  I've just been running around slicing random nodes and made a good profit that way.  How badly have the nodes been nerfed?

[Surlyboi]

I don't know where you guys are getting this "purpz don't have mod slots" stuff from. I've gotten at least two purple drops that have had mod slots.

[Threash]

Everything has mod slots, we are talking about augment slots.  Oranges don't have augment slots, i assume purples do since nothing else actually does.

[CmdrSlack]

At least for synthweaving, I see augment slots on any item where I get a critical success crafting.

[Surlyboi]

Ah, nevermind.

[Teleku]

At least for synthweaving, I see augment slots on any item where I get a critical success crafting.

I think the point is that, so far, the only thing that has augment slots are craft-able items that crit.  The drops in the very first end game raid are better than anything you can craft.  So unless purple drops (not crafted) naturally come with augment slots, augments are going to become more and more worthless as more and more people hit max level.

[Merusk]

Was all the money from slicing coming from missions?  I've just been running around slicing random nodes and made a good profit that way.  How badly have the nodes been nerfed?

Haven't had a node yet, but yes the bulk of the cash was coming from missions.  You'd run a rich or bountiful T5 mission for 2k credits and get 5-6k back.    I just ran a few Abundant and Bountiful missions and got less than the mission cost back.  So it pays nothing other than nodes now.  You'll see a lot of folks drop it but the nodes should still be OK for free cash.

And to be clear there are  MOD SLOTS then MOD SLOT TYPES.   Slot types include Barrels, Crystals, Enhancements, AUGMENTS, Armoring, Hilts and (stupidly) Mods.   Augments appear to ONLY be on crafted items that crit.

This is a pointless waste for Slicing because when leveling-up you replace gear too often to actually bother finding a crafted item that's crit vs just muddling through.  Endgame Purps will have no augments - as was previously stated - because folks would just farm the early bosses, rip out the mods and boom, instant raid gear.  (Although, yes it's possible they'll have an empty slot for Augments to be added-in.  No word on that yet.)

[Threash]

Well last night i was in Quesh and today i am in Hoth so it could very well be that, but the slicing nodes went from giving 450-600 to 1000-1200.  It could just be the change in planet though.

[sam, an eggplant]

Fairly in-depth reports from the forums are that lockbox missions are now net negative over time. You'd make more profit camping a slicing world node and waiting for it to respawn. Time to drop slicing, folks.

It's also time to drop any illusions that "TOR will be different".

The developers don't communicate their goals. They made core design decisions that were obviously wrong and ignored beta extensive feedback until after some lucky people profited in live. Then they reflexively over-nerfed in the very first patch, and destroyed an entire tradeskill. In other words, TOR is a MMO.

[Thrawn]

Slicing nerf seems fine.  People are just crying over not having a money fountain anymore.

[Threash]

It's not "fine", there is absolutely zero point in it existing now.  And before anyone pipes in with the retarded augments and missions crap again: the missions are random drops on crits, you can't run missions specifically for them, you get maybe one in ten missions and the only ones people want are the max level ones which come from the max level missions that didn't make money even before the nerf and the augments are completely random among about 20 different stats most of which are worthless, most of them are green thus worthless and each mission takes over an hour to finish.  The skill is dead, removing it would have been a better option.

[Thrawn]

Do people even look at this stuff or just theory craft and rage?  I've run about 10 slicing missions since I got home and I'm about 12k positive credits on top of picking up 2 (340) skill mission discoveries.  That's without considering any slicing gathering nodes I would of picked up if I was actually running around.

Again, slicing seems mostly fine now and people are just raging.  The only point I agree on is that the augment missions are mostly worthless and could use a buff.

[Threash]

Yes, i ran missions on three companions for several hours.  Rich missions are a profit, they are just rare and most of the time you have to run the money losing ones.

[Trippy]

For money making while leveling up are there any decent gathering or missions skills now post-nerf?

[Threash]

If you are actually out there gathering everything is a profit, slicing better than most i assume. 

[Merusk]

Do people even look at this stuff or just theory craft and rage?  I've run about 10 slicing missions since I got home and I'm about 12k positive credits on top of picking up 2 (340) skill mission discoveries.  That's without considering any slicing gathering nodes I would of picked up if I was actually running around.

Again, slicing seems mostly fine now and people are just raging.  The only point I agree on is that the augment missions are mostly worthless and could use a buff.

You've gotten lucky on rich spawns in your mission log, then. Abundant, Moderate and Bountiful are a definite loss.  Do you *think* you're profiting because you're running quests or are you keeping an actual log?

[caladein]

I'm just not seeing that from the data gathered on EJ.  All but three lockbox missions (which have sample sizes 1, 6, and 3) are showing a net profit on credits.

I'm not sure what "fairly in-depth" translates to in terms of samples and there are other factors to consider (like affection critical rates) so I can't say for certain those people are wrong without looking at their work.

[Thrawn]

You've gotten lucky on rich spawns in your mission log, then. Abundant, Moderate and Bountiful are a definite loss.  Do you *think* you're profiting because you're running quests or are you keeping an actual log?

I actually wrote down the cost and profit of about a dozen missions before I quit tracking them and they were all profit.  All Class 5 & 6 lockbox missions.  My profits weren't huge, but were profit.  Guess I just must be lucky?

[Threash]

Level 6 only goes up to abundant and those were not a profit before the nerf.

[Teleku]

Hrm, I'm torn on abandoning it.  With all the drama over it, I'm sure this wont be the last change.  I predict a lot of buff/nerfs to the skill till they figure it out, so might be wise to hold on to it in case they change things to buff it in other ways (like making augs way useful or something.  Who knows).

[Threash]

Or adding the bonus missions as an actual mission reward rather than just a random crit chance.

[Threash]

I just ran a level 6 abundant reward mission, it was a 250 credit loss.  There is no way you can be making a profit from those unless you are getting extremely lucky.

[Koyasha]

I kept a log of the handful of missions I did earlier today.  Every one turned a profit.  Level 6 missions - all of them were "Plug the Leak" and one "Data Race".  I think that's moderate and abundant yields.  Again, every one turned a profit...but it wasn't a big profit.  It's certainly not worth keeping slicing for these profits.  To be precise:

111227, 11:30 Plug the Leak - Cost 1415 / Return 1989 - Profit: 574
111227, 12:09 Plug the Leak - Cost 1415 / Return 1650 - Profit: 235
111227, 12:42 Plug the Leak - Cost 1415 / Return 1636 - Profit: 221
111227, 13:14 Plug the Leak - Cost 1415 / Return 1738 - Profit: 323
111227, 13:45 Plug the Leak - Cost 1415 / Return 1528 - Profit: 113
111227, 14:19 Plug the Leak - Cost 1415 / Return 1445 - Profit: 30
111227, 14:56 Data Race - Cost 1485 / Return 1753 - Profit: 308

I plan to keep logging every mission I run like this to see what happens.  I think I'll also note whether they're moderate, abundant, etc.  I also did not note in those logs which missions gave me additional rewards besides the credits and which didn't, but I got at least one purple schematic out of those missions as well.

I'm not sure the schematics, augments, and mission discoveries are worth the skill.  But the credit amounts are reasonable enough.  You're not going to be making huge amounts of money on this, but it's not going to make you go broke either.  The only question for me so far is whether the 'primary' rewards of the skill: the schematics, augments, and mission discoveries - are worth having Slicing rather than some other skill.  At the moment, I'm not sure they are.

[Paelos]

They need to make it so you can add augment slots to things, otherwise augments are pointless.

[Threash]

If all moderates turned a profit and abundants can go either way that has to be a bug, unless i got the reward hierarchy wrong this whole time.

[caladein]

If all moderates turned a profit and abundants can go either way that has to be a bug, unless i got the reward hierarchy wrong this whole time.

In terms of tiers it's Moderate, Abundant, Bountiful, and Rich.

As for "which ones should you run", I think lowering the rewards from the green quality boxes has flipped it around from before.

[Paelos]

They took an atomic bomb to the skill. Now, they begin the rebuilding process.

Will it be worth keeping? Hell it was so easy to level in the first place, by the time they fix it I may just pick it up again.

[Lightstalker]

I kept a log before and after.

At the high end they cut the yield by about half, don't have enough data to be conclusive yet because the missions take so long to run. 
At the low end they doubled the yield, plenty of data here because they run so fast.

They may have increased the mission failure chance overall.  Prior to the patch there were 5 missions that yielded more than a credit per second, I expect all of those to be dramatically reduced, to the 0.25-0.35 range.  Cutting the yield by a factor of 4-7 is a pretty heavy nerf, might make an interesting decision on which mission you run as tier 1 missions have a higher per second yield but are much more hands-on to manage than the longer running tier 6 missions.

I've been tracking Treasure Hunting as well, since it also has lockbox missions.  Those are much closer to break-even than Slicing, slicing just got a vastly reduced but still positive yield with this patch.  That makes some sense as you get useful crafting goods with Treasure Hunting while you only get credits with Slicing. 

Either way you look at it, the return is greater than 1, it makes a bad casino (or a good one from the players perspective).  In the current state it will continue to be massively popular.

[Thrawn]

They took an atomic bomb to the skill.

They made a moderate nerf to an obviously overpowered crew skill that still pays you to level it. 

[eldaec]

The major benefit of still taking slicing to begin with is that in-world resource nodes give direct cash money instead of filling your inventory with worthless junk.

Plus as a beginner you can play with missions for free.

I took slicing immeadiately before the nerf, and I'm keeping it until I am rich enough to give no fucks.

[apocrypha]

Quick logging results from yesterday & today:

12 slicing lockbox missions, levels 4 & 5, all Moderate or Abundant yield. Total creds spent on mission costs 13570, total income 14444, which is a profit of 874 creds, over a 4 hour time period.

Plus 12 in-world boxes during that time giving a total of 1583 creds, ~132 creds each.

So, yes I'm still making a tiny profit from slicing, but it feels so small as to be not worth the bother, especially since there's no other benefit at all from it. Previously I was using slicing payouts to fund biochem leveling on another character but that won't work now. All crafting abandoned for now then, it's just a money- and time-sink as it is right now.

[Furiously]

The next step will be them removing either the credits from it or removing all in-world nodes. It's still free money. And it's too big of a faucet.

That being said, speeder prices are too high given this nerf.