I've always liked crafting in MMOs. Especially trying to cover all the crafting bases and keep my own characters in decent gear while leveling.

But with the new crew skill system in SWTOR I can see absolutely zero reason for the average story oriented player to touch crew skills. Not even if he or she levels a whole stable of alts.

Everything you can craft up to level 56 you can get the rough equivalent by doing heroics. Even if you skip the harder heroics and just solo the easy and quick ones while also doing the story quests you will still get enough drops (two per heroic) to stay well geared. This would top out at item level 178 gear for 56.

Then the crew skills simply fall off a cliff with nothing at all to craft from 56 all the way to 64. And the level 64 crafted items take special ingredients from Hardmode Flashpoints that the average casual player is not likely to do.

Very disappointing to me since I don't want to waste time with pointless crafting. But an MMO without meaningful crafting holds no interest for me. I think they slapped this new system together in such a way to make it superficially accessible to newbies while putting the shaft to any crafter who is even moderately experienced.

Yep, completely agree. I just got one of my characters to her sixties and was trying to find schematics...

Was I dissappointed.

I've spent all this time maxxing crew skills and researching schematics to basically have it all thrown away.

Yep, it was a bland crafting system before, now it's progressively painful.

Craft stuff using easily obtainable mats.

Sell stuff for big profit.

Buy rare mats with credits

Craft endgame stuff with rare mats.

Use crafted stuff and sell any crits.

-Easy peasy.

I spend about 10 mins on crafting about twice a day. - About once a week I go out farming nodes for materials.

- that nets between 1/4 and 1/2 million credits per day. - More than enough to buy the top grade materials if I needed them. - But all those credits just sit in the bank and guild bank - coz I've bought all the unlocks and all the shiny stuff that I want.

And you can do the 6 basic steps, or indeed just gather the materials and sell them and buy stuff with the profit. Anodyne extract (for example) was going for 1.5K - 2.5K each last week when people were buying it to give to Lokin. - And you could easily farm 4-5 stacks of 99s on Yavin in about an hour. - And metals + archaeology if you wanted.

- That's a conservative 600K - nearly double that if you sell the Met cell culture and other stuff as well. - And TBH you'd be hard pressed to Pug an op from scratch and complete it in an hour and win all the drops.

TLDR: - Work smarter not harder.

Yeah, I have been thinking the same thing, I have been doing the heroics before starting any planet and that has been keeping me well enough geared to not need to think about Armourmech or synthweaving (outside of cosmetic items), infact the only thing I actually upgrade as I go along it my main hand weapon which only costs 6 crystals to upgrade anyway.

But thinking about it:

Armourmech - for cosmetic reasons only I can get better gear doing heroics

Synthweaving - as above

Biochem - you can get implants by heroics, vendor stims now have +power as standard and medkits can scale.

Cybertech - no need for mods, enhancements or implants because of heroics only grenades add extra but is it worth it

Artifice - hilts not really needed as only 2 crystals, relics can be got with heroics, ditto offhand items only +41 standard colour crystals.

Armstech - never really worth much to begin with, for barrels see artifice above only 2 crystals.

Craft stuff using easily obtainable mats.

Sell stuff for big profit.

Buy rare mats with credits

Craft endgame stuff with rare mats.

Use crafted stuff and sell any crits.

-Easy peasy.

 

I spend about 10 mins on crafting about twice a day. - About once a week I go out farming nodes for materials.

- that nets between 1/4 and 1/2 million credits per day. - More than enough to buy the top grade materials if I needed them. - But all those credits just sit in the bank and guild bank - coz I've bought all the unlocks and all the shiny stuff that I want.

 

And you can do the 6 basic steps, or indeed just gather the materials and sell them and buy stuff with the profit. Anodyne extract (for example) was going for 1.5K - 2.5K each last week when people were buying it to give to Lokin. - And you could easily farm 4-5 stacks of 99s on Yavin in about an hour. - And metals + archaeology if you wanted.

 

- That's a conservative 600K - nearly double that if you sell the Met cell culture and other stuff as well. - And TBH you'd be hard pressed to Pug an op from scratch and complete it in an hour and win all the drops.

 

TLDR: - Work smarter not harder.

Most of this seems to be saying that I should get to max level and then primarily be a gathering and auction house trader. That's all well and good if a person finds it rewarding.

But I want to craft and supply my own characters in a meaningful way. I still have 4 classes that I have yet to finish leveling through the base game. I was working towards having all the crew skills covered so I could supply my own characters.

But then I discovered that it's pointless because the same gear is available by just running a few heroics. All the way from 1 to 56 there is virtually nothing you can craft that has any real worth because it's pretty much all obtainable from heroics or vendors.

Then from 56 to 64 there's nothing at all to craft. Then at 64 everything requires items that drop from hardmode flashpoints or OPs.

Leveling from 1 to 65 and leveling worthless crafting from 1 to 500 just so, at endgame, you can run around gathering material and playing the auction house just so you can afford to buy the rare materials that you can't obtain on your own as a solo player is just about the most fail concept I've ever encountered in the world of MMO crafting.

Considering what the guy up above said about gathering at high level and then selling on the Auction House and buying the rare crafting materials from group content, I decided to go check it out.

Level 8 material from gathering and running missions sell for horribly low prices. Gathered green items typically for 200 to 400 and even the blue items from missions for just 400 to 600. Meanwhile the rare items you need in large quantity to make anything for level 64 sell for 60 or 70k each.

This system is crafting disaster. There's no reason to craft from levels 10 to 64 unless you are incapable of running heroics to gear up leveling characters. And the only way you can craft at 64 is by running a ton of group content to get rare drops.

Level 8 material from gathering and running missions sell for horribly low prices. Gathered green items typically for 200 to 400 and even the blue items from missions for just 400 to 600. Meanwhile the rare items you need in large quantity to make anything for level 64 sell for 60 or 70k each.

what sever are you on? :3

I used to regularly always use my screw skills but now I don't bother at all beyond prefab construction.

I used it as a money maker but most crew skills I have can't make money anymore and I can't be assed changing to new ones.

I mean you could still use it as a money maker but now there are easier ways to make money and more of it unless you're really going to put some effort into getting a good "chain gang" going but then that's not for the average player really.

At best you might just take a few gathering/mission skills to supplement running dailies etc. and just sell of results but crafting itself really isn't necessary or even semi interesting for the average player.

A few things:

I spent an afternoon the other day, clearing out all my characters' cargo bays, selling off all the stuff I'd crafted but not used for one reason or another - armour, hilts, barrels, mods, enhancements, relics, implants, ears and everything. - about 2-3 bays full of unused stuff.

I put them all up for sale on the GTN. - At reasonable prices - a few thousand for the greens, up to 20-50K for the purples.

Everything sold in 2 days. - proving that selling stuff to leveling characters is profitable.

Secondly, making dyes and Augment kits makes a tidy profit, but it takes a bit of effort spinning around several characters to optimize the gathering, and running around picking up nodes. I sell 5-10 kits a day and I never sell much lower than 60K per kit for Mk-8s and a bit less for the lower grades. Dyes I make regularly go for 25K or so each - a few where the market is more volatile go for 120K. A few crystals go for 120K to 150K a few times a week.

For dyes I buy the nodes for my SH and spin my characters around gathering them. I have a shortlist of mats I search for on the GTN, in case someone is selling them at base price. Everything goes into the mixer.

Every character I log into is making something or gathering something. Crafting is a little more convoluted with the extra steps, but once you have a stock, it's just like any other crafting mat - But with a bonus of crits if you have big companion affection when you make 'em.

The average player can easily craft stuff for cosmetic purposes or keep themselves geared once they have 2-3 characters leveled up to take crewskills. They can also make some credits. You just have to put in a tiny bit of effort.

A few things:

I spent an afternoon the other day, clearing out all my characters' cargo bays, selling off all the stuff I'd crafted but not used for one reason or another - armour, hilts, barrels, mods, enhancements, relics, implants, ears and everything. - about 2-3 bays full of unused stuff.

I put them all up for sale on the GTN. - At reasonable prices - a few thousand for the greens, up to 20-50K for the purples.

Everything sold in 2 days. - proving that selling stuff to leveling characters is profitable.

 

Secondly, making dyes and Augment kits makes a tidy profit, but it takes a bit of effort spinning around several characters to optimize the gathering, and running around picking up nodes. I sell 5-10 kits a day and I never sell much lower than 60K per kit for Mk-8s and a bit less for the lower grades. Dyes I make regularly go for 25K or so each - a few where the market is more volatile go for 120K. A few crystals go for 120K to 150K a few times a week.

 

For dyes I buy the nodes for my SH and spin my characters around gathering them. I have a shortlist of mats I search for on the GTN, in case someone is selling them at base price. Everything goes into the mixer.

 

Every character I log into is making something or gathering something. Crafting is a little more convoluted with the extra steps, but once you have a stock, it's just like any other crafting mat - But with a bonus of crits if you have big companion affection when you make 'em.

 

The average player can easily craft stuff for cosmetic purposes or keep themselves geared once they have 2-3 characters leveled up to take crewskills. They can also make some credits. You just have to put in a tiny bit of effort.

Other than the fact that I don't bother crafting aug kits for sale (too much work for too little profit), and that my server gives better profit margins, yeah. This.

A few things:

I spent an afternoon the other day, clearing out all my characters' cargo bays, selling off all the stuff I'd crafted but not used for one reason or another - armour, hilts, barrels, mods, enhancements, relics, implants, ears and everything. - about 2-3 bays full of unused stuff.

I put them all up for sale on the GTN. - At reasonable prices - a few thousand for the greens, up to 20-50K for the purples.

Everything sold in 2 days. - proving that selling stuff to leveling characters is profitable.

 

Secondly, making dyes and Augment kits makes a tidy profit, but it takes a bit of effort spinning around several characters to optimize the gathering, and running around picking up nodes. I sell 5-10 kits a day and I never sell much lower than 60K per kit for Mk-8s and a bit less for the lower grades. Dyes I make regularly go for 25K or so each - a few where the market is more volatile go for 120K. A few crystals go for 120K to 150K a few times a week.

 

For dyes I buy the nodes for my SH and spin my characters around gathering them. I have a shortlist of mats I search for on the GTN, in case someone is selling them at base price. Everything goes into the mixer.

 

Every character I log into is making something or gathering something. Crafting is a little more convoluted with the extra steps, but once you have a stock, it's just like any other crafting mat - But with a bonus of crits if you have big companion affection when you make 'em.

 

The average player can easily craft stuff for cosmetic purposes or keep themselves geared once they have 2-3 characters leveled up to take crewskills. They can also make some credits. You just have to put in a tiny bit of effort.

The average player can do many thing however you are going to find hat you've outlined are things they are not going to do. Why would they want to juggle between toons just to craft something for themselves they really don't need?

Most of what you've put imo is flawed in regards to the average player because to make a few credits it's easier just for them to sell the mats directly for "a few credits".

Balancing a super annoying juggling act between toons to make a little extra profit vs just selling mats directly from them for possibly slightly less profit ... I know which I would choose as an "average" player.

I've always liked crafting in MMOs. Especially trying to cover all the crafting bases and keep my own characters in decent gear while leveling.

 

But with the new crew skill system in SWTOR I can see absolutely zero reason for the average story oriented player to touch crew skills. Not even if he or she levels a whole stable of alts.

 

Everything you can craft up to level 56 you can get the rough equivalent by doing heroics. Even if you skip the harder heroics and just solo the easy and quick ones while also doing the story quests you will still get enough drops (two per heroic) to stay well geared. This would top out at item level 178 gear for 56.

 

Then the crew skills simply fall off a cliff with nothing at all to craft from 56 all the way to 64. And the level 64 crafted items take special ingredients from Hardmode Flashpoints that the average casual player is not likely to do.

 

Very disappointing to me since I don't want to waste time with pointless crafting. But an MMO without meaningful crafting holds no interest for me. I think they slapped this new system together in such a way to make it superficially accessible to newbies while putting the shaft to any crafter who is even moderately experienced.

I did too, its fcking completely worthless no, its a money sink and a time sink, you wanna play this game, sub for one month, do all the content, unsub and never play again until the next year or 2 go bye and a lot more expansions come out for free because EA IS GOING UNDER U HEAR DAT BRO YOU CANT RUN A DAMN BUSINESS!

I did too, its fcking completely worthless no, its a money sink and a time sink, you wanna play this game, sub for one month, do all the content, unsub and never play again until the next year or 2 go bye and a lot more expansions come out for free because EA IS GOING UNDER U HEAR DAT BRO YOU CANT RUN A DAMN BUSINESS!

I beg to differ.

They Haz all your money bro!

The average player can do many thing however you are going to find hat you've outlined are things they are not going to do. Why would they want to juggle between toons just to craft something for themselves they really don't need?

 

Most of what you've put imo is flawed in regards to the average player because to make a few credits it's easier just for them to sell the mats directly for "a few credits".

 

Balancing a super annoying juggling act between toons to make a little extra profit vs just selling mats directly from them for possibly slightly less profit ... I know which I would choose as an "average" player.

I would class myself as an average player. I do some PvE, some PvP some GSF. Teeny-timy bit of RP. I craft a bit for credits and equipping my lower level characters. I am in a small guild and play an hour or two at most per day.

I have lots of characters - several Bio, 2 slicers, several gatherers - but only 1 at 500 Artifice - It's all I need to make credits. I'd say that was pretty average.

I don't juggle mats around, I use legacy storage. Tab 2 for Bio, tab 3 for Archeology etc. It isn't hard.

No crewskill is gonna make 10M credits per day or make BiS equipment or the most desirable looking gear. - BW stitched that low-hanging fruit up a long time ago. The best anyone can do is stand on a chair for the rest.

Well... There's augments.

Tbh, this 4.0 crafting sucks big time. 3.0 hit the sweet spot for me at at least. You could craft 186 hilts/barrels/armorings and non-lettetered enhancements. It required effort but it was great. Now we have nothing.

It was great feeling to get when you finally could craft entry level (186) hilt/barrel to one of your alts. Now it's just: oh, more cosmetic stuff with unrealistic mats requirements.

From the hilt/barrel perspective, the stat simplification was awesome. The "willpower hilt" got a jailbreak thanks to it being turned into the "Versatile Hilt". So now you can learn hilts for your sorcs/sages/sins/shadows off of crystals. For large legacies this and the Defiant crafting are good.

For subsistence crafting (using what you craft), this expansion was good. Selling for money has been unpredictable (not impossible, but volatile--especially for low population servers). Mostly I try to overlap GTN sell listings with my need. Then if I don't make money off of an item at a profitable price, I use it somewhere in my legacy.

I would class myself as an average player. I do some PvE, some PvP some GSF. Teeny-timy bit of RP. I craft a bit for credits and equipping my lower level characters. I am in a small guild and play an hour or two at most per day.

 

I have lots of characters - several Bio, 2 slicers, several gatherers - but only 1 at 500 Artifice - It's all I need to make credits. I'd say that was pretty average.

I would wager that's not at all an average player in the slightest. An average dedicated player perhaps, an average long time player ... the average player I think is more likely to be a casual player who has issues remaining interested in one game for extended periods of times anyway with such a massive market out there.

Can't prove it of course but then neither can you so I guess we're stuck with our opinions.

No crewskill is gonna make 10M credits per day or make BiS equipment or the most desirable looking gear. - BW stitched that low-hanging fruit up a long time ago. The best anyone can do is stand on a chair for the rest.

Which is why I don't bother with crew skills anymore really. I Can and do make 10 million a day over only 3 toons using the GTN and CM items and it's, to me, less tedious and time consuming than trying to make a couple of mill ad ay through crew skills would be.

I beg to differ.

 

They Haz all your money bro!

they has about a total of 150 of my dollars bro

From the hilt/barrel perspective, the stat simplification was awesome. The "willpower hilt" got a jailbreak thanks to it being turned into the "Versatile Hilt". So now you can learn hilts for your sorcs/sages/sins/shadows off of crystals. For large legacies this and the Defiant crafting are good.

Is that only for hilts/barrels? And 216 only?

Just wanted to add my two cents here.

I'm playing a new toon on a new server, so no alts, no XP boosts used and no legacy (it's US, while my main is on EU).

I've leveled biochem before, and it had always been somewhat tricky to 'sync' the crafting level with your own, to make the most use of it. Right now? It's just plainly impossible with those ridiculous XP rates.

I've outleveled the crafting long before I even had a chance to pick it up. I've left Ord Mantell as a 14 and went through Esseless, whch made me 17 (almost 18). Those lv 10 schematics were a joke. Taris was 22-28, with it's garde 2 mats. The only way to actually 'sync' the crafting is to abandon the story entirely and to go grinding for the proper grade. Just because my current planet will never have my actual 'current' mats.

I'm not sure about how to fix that. Adding trainers to the starting planets, along with some nodes could be helpful, but that is going to encourage the farming bots. But then again - they exist no matter what, and little is done about them (SavRip Island has the leveling bot-party all the time). Increase the starting schematics? I don't know, but as is - it's just plainly annoying. Also note, that I play a stealthy class, which means that trooper or knight has even more exp&levels than I do. And trust me - I do not grind levels. It's just story + some planetary. I'd gladly have a -5 delevel, lol, because all the current story content is super easy and boring. I'm a healer and I can't remember a single time I've healed in those 28 levels, I had not even set my comp in tanking.

The average player can do many thing however you are going to find hat you've outlined are things they are not going to do. Why would they want to juggle between toons just to craft something for themselves they really don't need?

Who says they don't need it? If you are "juggling alts," then you have alts. And unless you make all the same class, they are going to need different things.

I have 6 crafting alts - one for each craft. I started them off gearing each other up once they were all to their respective space station. (I admit my 2 highest level characters are only gatherers, and I had large amounts of Tier 1 and 2 materials when I started.) By the time I had everyone geared, my crafters had levels of 50+ and everyone had better gear than they did when I started.

Heroics do give better gear, but what you get is random. Need a new Armoring? Sorry, you got another ear piece. Crafting allows you to get what you need when you need it.

I've leveled biochem before, and it had always been somewhat tricky to 'sync' the crafting level with your own, to make the most use of it. Right now? It's just plainly impossible with those ridiculous XP rates.

I've outleveled the crafting long before I even had a chance to pick it up.

Run missions for materials. You don't level yourself, but you level your crafting and get materials. (All of my crafters, except Biochem, can craft higher than they can use. Biochem is the exception because she was higher level to start with.)

Increase the starting schematics?

That is a good idea. I don't know why the schematics start at LVL 8, given that the earliest someone could get them is 10 (by using an Emergency Fleet Transport to go up, get Crew Skills, and go back to the starting planet). 12-14 is more likely.

I'm a healer and I can't remember a single time I've healed in those 28 levels, I had not even set my comp in tanking.

Please note that your companion is capped at the planet's max. But yes, leveling is pretty easy. I almost never had to heal my companion on my Sage (currently LVL 42). Sometimes I did, but not a lot. (I want to point out that most of the time I was leveling the Sage, gearing companions was required. So I and my companions were all a little under-geared because I had to "spread the love.")

Who says they don't need it? If you are "juggling alts," then you have alts. And unless you make all the same class, they are going to need different things.

 

I have 6 crafting alts - one for each craft. I started them off gearing each other up once they were all to their respective space station. (I admit my 2 highest level characters are only gatherers, and I had large amounts of Tier 1 and 2 materials when I started.) By the time I had everyone geared, my crafters had levels of 50+ and everyone had better gear than they did when I started.

 

Heroics do give better gear, but what you get is random. Need a new Armoring? Sorry, you got another ear piece. Crafting allows you to get what you need when you need it.

 

Again, not the "average" player. The average player will make do with what they are given as this game is more than generous in gearing these days and the difficulty of the combat. They aren't going to start juggling alts just to craft a piece of armour on a toon that they really don't need because the content is easy for them to do anyway.

There is really no reason anymore to craft stat based gear for yourself unless you already had the maxed crew skills, schems and mats to do so.

Sure you CAN do it if you really want but you certainly don't NEED to, in fact doing so would be nothing more than a cumbersome exercise because the content is so stupidly easy now.

Run missions for materials. You don't level yourself, but you level your crafting and get materials. (All of my crafters, except Biochem, can craft higher than they can use. Biochem is the exception because she was higher level to start with.)

Even running missions etc. you are going to level up faster than the crew skill can keep up with generally which is what the poster you are quoting is pointing out I believe. By the time you have the levelled skill, got the mats etc. you are already higher level than what you wanted to craft to begin with.

What does this tell us? You didn't need to craft gear anyway because you levelled and played fine without it.

The only thing I use crew skills for now is crafting augment kits for main and offhand weapons,and to make eyepieces, implants and relics.

With the 4.0 changes, what I did was make armor sets for different levels in the game. I just use the starting legacy armor, mod them to the appropriate level and drop them in legacy storage for all my toons to use.

I've always liked crafting in MMOs. Especially trying to cover all the crafting bases and keep my own characters in decent gear while leveling.

 

But with the new crew skill system in SWTOR I can see absolutely zero reason for the average story oriented player to touch crew skills. Not even if he or she levels a whole stable of alts.

 

Everything you can craft up to level 56 you can get the rough equivalent by doing heroics. Even if you skip the harder heroics and just solo the easy and quick ones while also doing the story quests you will still get enough drops (two per heroic) to stay well geared. This would top out at item level 178 gear for 56.

 

Then the crew skills simply fall off a cliff with nothing at all to craft from 56 all the way to 64. And the level 64 crafted items take special ingredients from Hardmode Flashpoints that the average casual player is not likely to do.

 

Very disappointing to me since I don't want to waste time with pointless crafting. But an MMO without meaningful crafting holds no interest for me. I think they slapped this new system together in such a way to make it superficially accessible to newbies while putting the shaft to any crafter who is even moderately experienced.

I agree, I had all Crew skills maxed now they want me to buy new schematics and restart no Im done crafting...

I started a new toon when 4.0 dropped, just to get the feel of 4.0. When I took a look at crafting I winced and then just grabbed some gathering skills. As of Oricon I have around 9 million and have spent about the same I would guess. I have been just selling on the GTN.

I am by no means an expert on this game, but I gave some advice to a new player last week. I told him to take crystals as rewards and to do as many Heroics as possible. There is no longer any reason to buy anything while leveling as Heroic drops are often more powerful than wearing modded orange gear. So take Heroic drops and supplement with general drops while leveling.

So, then why should anything below 60-65 be worth buying aside from looks?

How does this help crafters?

and why would I buy from the cartel market even?

It really looks like how all the different changes were going to effect not only each other but the economy wasn't very well thought out.