Open Letter to Everyone: State of Crafting/Economy

[supafreak]

This is a message to the entire server. Newbies, Vets, Devs, Guilds that run 4-5 cities, solo players etc.

I don’t claim to be an expert, but I know what I like in the SWG economy and the crafting system. Im sure we all know the crafting system is unique and one of the main draws for this game. Embrace it. It isn’t enough to have awesome features and new planets if the economy isn’t there. When the economy is in trouble, everything else gets boring too, not just crafting. The server cant retain or attract players without that dopamine release of accomplishing something, or earning new loot.

Maybe my ideas of what SWG should be don’t align with the vision of the Devs or the player base. That is possible. If I am way off here, that is ok. Let me know.

But there comes a point where you may as well just have the blue frog, and I think this server has a lot of fresh ideas and a lot of hard work put into it, so I don’t think any of us want it to be a blue frog server.

I’m going to talk about a few of the major problems on SWG servers and SR in general and try my best to at least offer up a suggestion for improvements, or changes that I believe could at least partially address those issues. It could take a mix of any or all of these suggestions. Of course this has to be a server wide dialogue, not a platform for any one person or guild.

The way I see it, many issues spill into one another

Empty Bazaar

A new player who wishes to be a joins the server. They check the Bazaar for a pulse to gauge the economy. It is dead because nobody uses the Bazaar.
A new player signs in. The first thing to do is run to the Bazaar for starter gear and tools. The problem is it is empty. Everything is sold on a vendor somewhere. They both might just leave. I usually do in these situations.

So the crafter cant reliably sell on the bazaar, and the buyers cant reliably count on anything being on the bazaar, because every time people use the Bazaar it is so sparely used, it looks empty.

Travel prices are trivial. Starports can go anywhere in the galaxy with one click. It is always better to just search for a vendor and fly around. It is a shame the Bazaar is so underutilized.

Solution: Make the Bazaar more attractive to brand new people and people who dont want to be 100% crafters. It should be the easy and cheap way new players can buy and sell gear, well before they even think about opening up stores.

This is partially a community problem, but is also linked with mechanic changes. This isn’t really anyone’s fault it’s just a natural thing to do given the systems in place. People will gravitate to what is easier even if it negatively impacts several other systems.

This leads me to the next issue.

Attack of the Clo… I mean vendors

I understand the template changes to Business and Merchant were probably important at the start. It helped the server get on its feet and establish Malls without gimping people who wanted to do combat, or multiple crafts. It isn’t easy to open up stores if you have to spend too many points just to get merchant. But right now, it is too trivial to be a master Merchant. 5 points to become a master merchant. This means even hardcore combat builds can be master merchants.

Every single character in the game (5 * The Population * Vendor Cap isnt even unrealistic at the moment) This is insane overkill. It shouldnt be possible. It may have been a goodwill gesture at first but if the community is going to grow, we need to actually need one another. It is also one of the main things killing the Bazaar.

Solution: I propose tying Merchant to Master Artisan. This way only people who are already seriously crafting will easily become master merchants. Everyone else can still pick up business 1-4, Or the Bazaar for the basic vendor needs if they need to.

Too Many Alts

That brings me to the next point. If we are going to grow, we need to rely on one another. It isn’t really a server if everyone is self-sufficient. There is no need for an economy if you can do everything yourself.

Right now everyone can be a master merchant. Alts can afk buff anything. People can survey afk better than top tier harvesters without energy or maintenance costs.

There’s no room for up and coming doctors or dancers. There’s no room for basically any starter gear, speeders, weapons, etc to speak of. No market for anything but immaculate BER harvesters, and even then sacrificing an alt is probably better.

Solution: The alt thing isn’t a huge problem alone. It mostly makes all the other issues worse. Im not advocating we remove alts. I certainly wouldn’t support any extra toon slots unless it was a old vet unlock, or maybe a FS unlock when you get Padawan. I would also support less toons online at once. 1-2 down from 3.

This is partially a community problem, but is also linked with template changes. This isn’t really anyone’s fault it’s just a natural thing to do given the systems in place.

There is simply too much stuff for too few people

It really is bloated. Too many alts, too many vendors, too many items being produced for too few people. Hordes of grind quality and high-quality resources saved up. Too many resources coming in, not enough that need to go out.

It is too easy to get too much. There isn’t enough demand for what is being crafted, but people just keep crafting and posting because there is no downside what with all the vendor access. Supply too high + demand too low = prices are inflated. That’s economics 101.

The market is flooded with junk and nobody has a clue how to price the stuff that isn’t junk because there is nothing solid to base it off of. There is no sense of value.

Let me go back to the new player from earlier:

After he checks the bazaar and sees that it is dead. He sifts through the vendor lists and gets himself a mini-suit of composite, a swoop, good weapons, etc and still has change left for a few buffs.


Who the hell is going to buy any type of armor besides the comp mini suit that will last them well into their template and until they are ready to min/max a serious suit? The same thing goes for weapons, and speeders.

There isn’t any room for crafters to make anything but the best. 90% of crafted items have no market. There is nobody struggling in starter gear to work their way up to new gear where they feel the improvement, feel the accomplishment, it feels like an upgrade, it makes their quests easier. It just doesnt happen.

There is nothing special about upgrading your X-34 after put putting around Tat, because everyone has a stack of swoops from day 1.

This isn’t just an economy issue, this is a game progression issue. This is boring.

Again, this isn’t anyone’s fault. People are just doing what is natural give the systems we have. But it isn’t healthy for crafting or the economy. This is probably the worst problem by far, and there is no single solution.


There are too many starter credits

Combined with everything else there really isn’t a need for that many credits. I mean everything is so inflated and cheap as dirt, you don’t need 110, 000 credits. Swoops are like 5k, a mini suit might run 20k.

The amount should be lowered to reflect the economy. Or at the very least people selling starter gear, if you are gonna sell swoops and comp mini suits, ask for a price that reflects the 110,000 credits so that by the end of buying some starter gear, they should be broke and still not have everything they want. They should have to work towards something.


So what can be done? How can we all help the longevity of the server?

Devs: Look into the mechanics and how they interact with the economy and crafting system.

Starter cash, Alts, and ubiquitous Master merchants.

Veterans, and Large Guilds: Your contributions helped build the server, but if you want fresh blood you need to make some room (literally). This is a community effort and cant be forced or strong armed.

Focus on what you are best at. Make the best stuff and charge accordingly. For everything else, switch to custom orders. Stop clogging vendors with stuff nobody will ever buy. Stop undercutting so hard that 90% of the market is useless. Put out some medium grade starter kits that leave something to be desired, and CHARGE for it.

Take your low tier stuff off of the market and let the up and comers focus on small stuff like low grade armor, Cdef pistols, and tool chests, X-34 speeders, etc. Better yet take them off and delete them entirely. The same thing goes for the 10 billion grinding quality resources you have saved up. Post some in small batches and delete what you don’t need. You will never use it, and you will have a a few million new resources in a few days anyway. Give yourself some breathing room.

New Crafters: Use the Bazaar more. Decide what you want to focus on. Take custom orders. Advertise on the forum and chat. Don’t sell anything for less than you are worth. Your time is worth money.


I encourage any crafters or anyone else concerned about the economy to give feedback.

[Sereya]

I think this is a thoughtful and interesting post, though I disagree with some points. Just some miscellaneous responses:

- While the empty bazaar thing definitely happens, in my experience it's rectified within a few minutes as players are quick to tell new folks how to search player vendors galaxywide. I expect that even if changes were made to the bazaar (removing price caps, for example), crafters are still going to want their own vendors in their own towns. I don't view this as a major issue

- I don't think making merchant cost skill points again or tying it to MArtisan or any similar proposals would really change anything. On servers where merchant cost points, I basically just run enough to keep the most basic vendor up and skip all the rest of merchant.

- While I may be inclined to agree with you on the number of toon slots / number of online toons impacting the "social" aspects of SWG, I feel like on a 2+ year old server folks are pretty entrenched and used to the status quo in this regard.

- I disagree with the idea that there is no sense of value. I think there are some pretty natural pricing points for weapons, armor, food, etc. There are of course aberrations on the vendors, but those can be ignored (and won't sell anyway). (I say this as a weaponsmith and armorsmith).

- The "only room for the best stuff" issue you raise is certainly true, though I don't necessarily view it as a problem in the same way you do. That just seems to be one of the inevitable results of servers staying up for a while - I don't know if that can really be fixed. Furthermore, with the increased XP rates on SR, the idea of progression through weapons is a little less important in my eyes as you'll be a speed-capped master combat prof in an hour or two

- I don't see an issue with starter credits. The real cause of inflation, in my mind, are mission payouts. Within a few hours of starting on SR you can start hauling in hundreds of thousands of credits per hour. I personally believe all emu servers should nerf the heck out of missions payouts

Please don't take my (mostly) negative response as a middle finger - I think SWG economics are an excellent discussion topic, and I'm glad you've raised these points for feedback and some back-and-forth!

As someone who started in January and went WS and AS, it certainly wasn't easy to get up and running to compete with some of the folks that have been around for a while and had the resource advantage. That being said, a month or two later I was able to do so and make some credits in the process - so I do think there is room for new crafters and new entrants here. Frankly, for a server that has been up this long, I think there may be MORE room here than you'd expect.

[supafreak]

Thank you for the reply. I can see where you are coming from in a way, but Im still not really buying it.

To me there just isnt an early or mid game experience, for many of the reasons I mentioned and Ill elaborate more at the end.

An active bazaar is a sign of health. Sure anyone can go to a vendor, but the fact pretty much everyone has to be on a vendor to be useful isnt a good sign to me. It does and has turned away new players to SR which is part of the reason for my post today.

You may want to spend the extra points to get merchant anyway, but you are as you said a serious crafter. The point of tying it to master Artisan was to keep the majority of vendors to the serious crafters, stimulate bazaar use, limit filling the economy with junk, and not just be a throwaway for every single alt to pump out vendors for their crafter.

Definitely agree with your point about number of alts. I knew that would come up. I dont want to tread on any toes or force people to have to stop using alts. But I still had to bring up the consequence of many alts because it spills over into everything else. Ive also seen talk of people wanting even more alts and that is a scary thought.

I really dont think there is a sense of value. Some stuff is inflated to the moon and wont sell, fine. But stuff that should sell is being given away to the point where we might as well have the Blue Frog spawn our gear, and infinite speeders for us.

Mission payouts dont matter because credits have no value. Even if they nerfed missions, you already have everything youll ever need from your starter credits anyway, well everything you'd need if you actually had an early or mid game to play.

Theres no early or mid game. I log on. I use starter credits to buy my gear. Im done. There's nothing to work for at that point except the really high end stuff. So it may as well be spawned in by the frog.

For me SWG was about the million little things and the journey. It wasnt about logging on and jumping straight into farming elders and ancients an hour later because there is nothing in between to work for.

[Sereya]

Maybe you could provide some examples of what is being "given away"? I'm not clear on that point.

It seems like a fair amount of your frustration (i.e. no "mid game") may stem from the fact that by now we're all just too good at SWG. We know all the quirks, know all the ways to optimize our toons and our gear. There's not really a way back from this I don't think - e.g. I'll never make uncapped armor when I can make capped armor. I'll always run commando/TKM for krayts because that's the best way to do it. And so on and so forth. A lot of the exploration and slow progression on live came from the fact that we were figuring out as we went (or at least that was my experience). It seems as though the devs were trying to replicate some of this feeling of exploration with the new duplicator content on Tanaab, and I appreciated the work behind that.

One could also argue that there is an early game (starting out, leveling your profs), a mid-game (85% armor, decent powerhammer or whatever weapon, killing krayts and nightsisters) and an end-game (dungeon bosses, PvP).

[supafreak]

That's what I meant by stuff being given away, a decent power hammer, decent enough for farming, 85% armor, speeders etc. I got all of that with my starter credits. Did the same for the wife and got her a surgical droid she will never need to replace, buffs so we never need to buy buffs from anyone again unless we run krayts and want to squeeze out another few hundred points per stat. I feel as though I did actually spawn it with a blue frog.

Leveling a character takes a couple of hours at most, so Id lump that in with character creation. Something like doing a starter zone in wow classic, hitting level 60 in that zone in the same amount of time, and then having an epic mount and full set of Pre-Bis for 50 silver you made doing the starter quests.

Yeah it's cool we can do MC now, but there is something missing. Knowing more about Wow now wouldnt make that any less broken.

Knowledge definitely helps, but there are fundamental flaws there that cant be chalked up to just being able to micro-manage better. You still would need to work your way through a few tiers of gear before being ready for krayts normally, no matter how much you know.

I feel like an economy that inflated would make sense and be more tolerable in a server with 2000 people, but not here. Not that I care all that much about pop, but you know what I mean?

[Wozzmatic]

I have been on the server for only a few days but come with a wealth of SWG experience having been an original alpha tester. That doesn’t mean I think I know more than anyone else hopefully it just attests to my awareness of the game.

I am not sure I agree that 110k is too much to give to new players as with the xp boost and sparse player density that money helps kick start with training and lower level gear. There is an imbalance in the income/levelling equation but I actually like the challenge of having a problem presented to me. Having to be selective on armor and weapon purchases.

But, I totally agree that we can’t neglect the economy and the bazaar is quite simply devoid of items. I have always crafted in SWG. It’s the cornerstone of the whole economy after all. The sparse population makes for price inflation and thus more rigid pricing from a less competitive market. This does make starting out as a crafter so much more difficult. Move that 110k has been spent on training the challenge to get established and make money while levelling is immense. I have sold one item on the bazaar only yesterday and this barely covered two boxes of training. Is the idea that players like myself run artisan missions to get cash so we can continue to grind out our professions?

The fast xp makes levelling easy and for combat characters grinding out missions for money is easy enough. But for those that love crafting and start afresh in the server the challenge is significant whilst the established population continue to buy in their established ways.

Don’t get me wrong these aren’t gameplay breaking challenges especially for someone who has time under their belt in SWG but for new to SWG players this may well result in deterrence rather than appeal.

I’m loathe to make a post and not offer any solutions but on this occasion, with only a few days here, I don’t feel I have seen enough to offer anything without seeming arrogant.

I love the server and have already had one other friend join me from Basilisk with another potentially on the way. But one of those loves crafting too

[supafreak]

This is good. I never considered the impact that the bazaar had on people who only wanted to craft and didnt want to make combat alts for more cash. Simply leveling up and paying for yourself through pure crafting should be viable. IF nothing else changes, artisan, explorer, and entertainer missions should be boosted an appropriate amount.

I want to be careful I dont come across as arrogant either. I may not agree with every point in this thread, but Im honestly not trying to sound like a dick.

Im also willing to do what I can to help. For starters Im going to sell on the bazaar when I craft. Im not going to undercut. ANd when I can afford it IM going to buyup and burn off a lot of the grossly underpriced stock to free up some space. My idea is that most of them are artifacts from people leveling up years ago and they wont bother recrafting them just to post them for 100 credits.

Ive always known Bas to have a shit economy, but I hopped last night out of curiosity. Wow. For a much older and larger server the bazaar wasnt nearly as in shambles as I expected. It was packed in every category for even just a region search. A lot of the garbage was cheap. But for the price of an 80% mini suit here, you could get a 68% suit there, even though there is a lot more competition. People were undercutting by credits, not 10 000's of credits. To me that is a good thing. It leaves room. I know there are other factors involved like xp rate, and age of server but I was pleasantly surprised with how the economy balanced itself.

[Whibbs]

So, I'm not so huge into the economy yet on this server (even after 42 days here) that I can say too much on the matter, and I definitely don't want to spark any hate or arguments either. With that said...

I agree that there are A LOT of certain items that just don't need to be there. I can understand something like simply not crafting those particular items anymore. In my opinion, it should be every crafter's first thought to check the bazaar/vendor lists for things that there's just too much of already and just know at that point "Hey, I shouldn't make more of these, I'll make something else instead." Just the other day I looked on the vendor lists and there were just about 900 power hammers for sale. Right then and there, I decided to stop making power hammers unless I looted REALLY good Acklay Bones, or had a custom order. But this leads me to something you said @Supafreak...

"ANd when I can afford it IM going to buyup and burn off a lot of the grossly underpriced stock to free up some space."

Okay so, again, no hate or anything like that, but doing that is just a bit rude and isn't very thoughtful to be completely honest... Hear me out though and look at it from my point of view who just had that exact thing you said happen to me not 2-3 days ago. When I loot Acklay Bones around 170 max damage, I'm thinking that could turn into a really nice hammer, whether there's a lot of hammers on the vendor lists, or not. But when it gets that dreaded speed slice, what else can be done except use it for a "high quality" grind hammer? When a hammer is crafted with bones like that, and gets a speed slice, the hammer automatically loses any potential value it had at being sold for anything worth talking about.

Like I said, just a few days ago I had what you said happen to me. Someone came to my vendor and bought about 7ish hammers. What person needs 7 hammers? They never re-posted them on the bazaar or vendor list, I check daily to find those things out because this isn't the first game I've played where something like that happens just because I post something relatively cheap.

The reason I post things that cheap ties into what was said by Wozz and what you replied to him about with training costs and other things. I'm sorry, but it is still a bit time consuming to fully grind out a template, and 110k starting credits will not get you everything needed to do just that. I myself had to spend 60k for a starter composite grind mini-suit, and another 20-30k for a hammer barely over 500, which didn't seem to bad tbh, but after years of not playing SWG, how would I have known either way. Also, I had a bit of a struggle getting back into the groove of playing SWG again, so I died a couple times at the start until I finally decided to just aim for normal doc/ent buffs in a player city. Bam, another 20k. At that point, I wasn't making much for credits at all, so there I am, having already spent nearly 100k, and no money for training. It took me nearly a week just to complete my template, not to mention another week or so before I was able to afford the top-end armor, and I didn't get my first 800+ max damage hammer until I finally managed to grind out 1.4mil credits after dumping so much into grinding out Weaponsmith on my alt.

Needless to say, the reason I post weapons (eventually armor) so cheap to the point where I might actually be in the negative and not making any profit whatsoever, is because as a returning SWG player, I struggled to come up with the credits for everything I needed, personally (I'm sure everyone's experience at the start was different, so I don't claim to be speaking for everyone, not at all). Plus there's people who simply have never played SWG before who might be in an even worse position than I was with only having returned after so long, you never know what the circumstances/playstyle might be for each individual.

But yeah, when someone comes to my vendor and buys half of my power hammers just because they're cheap, that not only makes me not want to post more than a couple items at a time (of anything, because I don't know why they did that), but also ruins the fact that those were there so cheap for the purpose of starting players being able to buy really cheap, somewhat decent quality weapons, and still have plenty enough money to get a few boxes of training in to give them that oomph needed to carry along with the rest of their template.

In my opinion, just because there's a lot of one thing, doesn't mean anyone should be going around buying it all up when they can afford it. All that means is that the crafters should pay more attention to what's already out there, and simply not craft certain things for a while, or at least only do custom orders. Clearly I made a mistake in making so many power hammers, but in being a Swordsman stacker myself at one point, I was on a mission to keep getting better and better hammers, so yeah, I made a few too many "junk" ones in the process and decided to sell them really cheap.

Honestly I could go on and on all day about it, but really it all boils down to the fact I could care less about credits. I'm broke, I don't care, I don't need nor have a care to be rich. I craft to have fun and if I make low quality stuff, I sell it for give-away prices so new/returning players don't have to spend 20k/30k/or hell even 50-100k for ONE weapon. I mean, again, back to the starting credits...

My normal (completed) template consists of M.Swords, some TKA, some Fencer, some Pike, and some Medic. Add up the training for all that. Add up the cost of grind weapons for all 4 brawler trees, plus the elite novice box weapons. That's a lot more than 110k. And I've talked to other Weaponsmiths about simply making up grind weapon packs, and that's a great idea, I might do it myself too if I find the time.

I mainly just don't agree with clearing off someone's vendor simply to reduce the overall amount of certain items throughout the galaxy. Credits don't matter to every crafter. Those like me, as I said earlier, craft for fun and to help others. Simple as that.

[RIPGorath]

5 toons, 5x xp (sometimes 10x), 3 on at a time, reduced skill points needed for some professions, forgetting that PSG's with LS ressists on them were a bug on live when pulling out of a crate, doing more damage then a simple finite ADK or 30k resources ever could (which is even more limited as we're only allowed 1 account, unless we get our "wife" or "husband" or "bf" or "gf" or "kids" to pose for a pic), lmao.....

[radulecat]

Hi,
I joined this game for the first time ever like a month ago and have no past experience with it at all. That being said i guess i can tell you a piece of a real new player mind.

So.. i joined with some friends, 2 of them being veterans and 2 others being noobs like myself. Started with a BE Tailor toon as when i joined i was in the mood of afk grinding and just chill out with them on disc.
i had to use the money on 2 other toons to be able to master my professions since when i started i had no idea what is of value, what people are interested in buying and what is worth crafting so 0 income. Took me around 2 weeks to get to the master professions and a lot of migraines trying to learn and understand how the game works. Like it or not this is one of the most inconvenient, extremely complex game i ever had the pleasure to love and hate in the same time. (after a month i still have no idea how pet crafting works and im not yet rdy to go to the migraine zone to learn how and what). To conclude this point.. i dont think cutting on the starter credits will help new people who just get into the game at all, will probably discourage them as 500k is not rly that much).

As the Bazar point.. i invite people to buy the backpacks i put on naboo, theed in my second day on this server.. they are still there today even if they are on a "better" price than on some other vendors in the galaxy. i myself dont rly use the NPC citys that much since they are not the most convenient places in the world..
Personally at this point i see the main bazars as being "just there" as a relic of the past that is w8ting for a big update. (a fix for it Could be to link it with the personal vendors and be able to buy the stuff from them for an extra charge without hopping on different planets) i understand that in the past it might have been a main function and i respect your feelings towards it. But in my view as a new player who never seen it the way it used to work, the bazar is just an interface that shows me where i can buy and what, i would love to see it a bit more convenient made to respect todays age of gaming but that is just my preference. (as in wow they linked the market-bords and you dont need to travel for 20 mins to get to buy a table that is only sold by one person on the entire galaxy somewhere in a new started city without a shuttleport in the middle of nowhere but you want that table so you do it and than consider killing yourself to get home cuz that would be less painful than driving again for other 30 mins to get home).

I personally dont feel there is something wrong in the economy, i still find things i want to get or buy even after spending millions, i am still able to find goals to work towards, i am able to contact other crafters for custom orders and more or less im still able to go on galaxy harvester and curse that there is still no spawn for a mat i need.

Call my bluff but the issue might not be in the fact that somebody joined 1 year ago and is able to mass produce quality stuff for low-medium-high prices. There is nothing stopping a new player in making his own stuff and trying to compete with "the big dogs" if that is what he decides he wants to do but as an economy in real life i wont go and tell McDonalds to stop selling tons of food for 1$ just because i cant compete with it.. i would try and find a market for myself and make something that might have demand to make some profit.

I respect the post you made and encourage you and the community in this noble quest of making this server a better place but i would also encourage on threading it carefully as a good deed might also cause damage beyond repair. Ask first the right questions, is the system broken or im just seeing it broken because its not what im used to? How will this change affect other players and other systems, what system we might break is we make this change and so on..

as the last point im going to make, if the missions would be nerfed in giving less money people will have to put more effort in gathering the amounts they need, therefor the individual will spend less money on stuff as its harder to get them so it might be inclined to go for cheaper stuff therefor he will be able to do less higher contend so there might be less mats for sale (janta bloods and hides for example) therefor those mats will become more expensive and harder to come by so the buffs made will be less effective and the high quality ones will be more expensive and harder to come by, therefore some people doing buffing services might be less inclined in providing those services so less buff centers making the remaining ones laggier and busyer.
All this is an exaggerated point i wanted to make but could happen in a post apocalyptic nerf where after 3 hours of grinding missions instead of 2.5 mil you might get only 700k..

Please do not take offence cuz i meant none, all i said was meant to help looking on the problem from a different point.
Thank you for your time in reading this, tried to help by sharing my point of view,
Blair Hexed