Wrapping up Loose Ends in Revamp

[arkovo]

I have been armor smithing for several years now. I have some thoughts on how the profession's enjoyment can be enhanced.

The armor revamp changes the meta quite a bit. For high quality armor, the revamp pushes the meta away from relying on good slices of mass produced armor and towards "hand crafted" pieces utilizing segment enhancers (janta hides, nightsister shards). Hand crafted pieces of armor have more avenues available for reaching the resistance cap than in the original armor crafting system. This is for three reasons- the max resistance is five percentage points lower, the reduced consumption of segment enhancers due to most pieces now only requiring a single armor segment, and the availability of the interwoven segments, formerly known as RIS segments.

As a smith there is good reason to shift away from attempting factory production of unenhanced segments on SR. The change of special resists present on all segments means the armor product will have kinetic and energy (K/E) as a special resist instead of a base effectiveness (or not being present at all). Due to K/E being the most common types of damage dealt by npc's, this change is great in that gives many armors that were absent kinetic and/or energy these crucial resists and to become practical for pve content.

However, as a special resist, the resistance is unaffected by slicing. This, in combination with the revamp's reduction in armor segment effectiveness, means that in order to obtain the cap for the two most important resists the armor must have high quality enhancers, noncrafted layers (or layers only craftable using looted components), and/or a K/E layer addition with emphasis of experimental points on kinetic and energy resist. This focus of experimental points into K/E results in a lower base effectiveness. Even with resources with stats 90%+ of theoretical maximum, most armors will only achieve around a 66% base effectiveness. This means the slicer, given an effectiveness slice, has only a 28% chance of reaching the necessary threshold for capping effectiveness- about half the chance of the original armor crafting system. Not only this, but less points are available for encumbrance reduction in the layer crafting stage, so the product is considerably more HAM costly.

For these reasons a crafter is encouraged to look away from factory runs to achieve maximum resists. As mentioned earlier, a segment enhancer can bridge the divide between a long odds slice and reaching capped values. Due to the single segment cost of all armor pieces, the segment enhancer becomes more useful. A good quality janta hide or its analog will push resists to pre-revamp levels of around 73%, though encumbrance still runs higher. With 85% being the new cap, an effectiveness slice has a 76% chance of reaching cap, a 25 or so percentage point gain over the original crafting system (note that this higher certainty of success at capping only comes from the maximum achievable value being reduced from 90% to 85%). However hand crafting comes at high cost. Hand crafting results in the armor piece's limited ability to achieve a high socket piece blueprint, and inability to achieve a large number of runs.

Armorsmiths looking to produce resist capped armor still have recourse to making their lives easier. SR armor crafting now includes a lootable, 5-run 'tier 4' segment, known as the interwoven segment that is whitelisted for use in all armor types. This segment has the same base effectiveness values of the 'tier 2' advanced segment, but allows for the addition of geonosian power cubes. Geonosian power cubes may increase the final product's condition, HAM cost, or effectiveness- the effectiveness being of discussion here. A yellow power cube can boost the segment's effectiveness (which will carry over to the final armor) by three to eight percentage points. The higher cube values, such as seven or eight percent will push the resists to pre-revamp levels. This, in combination with a good quality janta hide or equivalent, allows for easy maximizing of armor effectiveness.

These high quality loots are not found in great abundance, thereby preventing high quality armor's proliferation. A considerable amount of time must be put into looting the materials, which now include an interwoven schematic (5 runs), a geonosian yellow cube and a segment enhancer with combined value of at least 15%, a gurk king hide, a woolamander bone, and fairly rare harvester resources. This resource intensive craft has shifted the meta from a low in-game time investment based on mass production and slicing to a high in-game time cost of looting resources scattered throughout the galaxy.

Personally, I like this change. Traveling the galaxy in search of materials over a wide range of locations gives the game more of a sense of actually adventuring and playing than relying on a repeated clicking of slicing menus until a desired random based result is reached. I feel that I actually, you know, play the game.

Though this revamp system is not without flaws. The hand crafting nature means the armor product has a random number of sockets, sometimes rolling no sockets. Being high end armor, it naturally follows that players will want this to be near best that can be achieved. Players rightfully reject armor that has low socket count as its capabilities are much reduced. This is a source of much frustration. It takes mutliple hours for the armorsmith to collect the materials in order to craft a minisuit of high quality. Being such a time-centric crafting style, it seems out of place that the crafting process can then be ruined in this capricious manner. The smith has no means of control over the socket roll, even a master smith with force crafting mastery and force luck will routinely produce pieces that have little to no sockets.

The variance on value of a piece due to sockets is too high to be left to random chance. A no socket piece will be lucky to fetch a third of the price of a three or four socket piece. At this level of variation, even a high socket, hastily crafted armor piece will procure a higher price. This continues to bind smiths to the old system tyranny of relying on the random number generator to deliver desired results.

For those instances in which a high socket roll is achieved, the feeling is not that of fun or accomplishment- that was done during the material acquisition and the careful layout of materials to produce the desired (nonrandom) stats of the armor piece. Instead a high socket roll is only filled with a sense of anxiety relief that the piece will actually serve its designed purpose and not nullify the previous hours of playtime.

I highly recommend changing the nature of the armor socket mechanic. Doing so will realize more of the potential of the armor revamp. I have recommendation if only as a place holder or conversation starter- replace the socket roll with an experimentation point driven socket mechanic. The crafter is given an extra socket for each experimentation point expended in a new experimentation category. There are many nice outcomes of such a system. For one, there is the customization of the armor piece, which from my history as an armorsmith comes frequently requested by the clientele. This mechanic will have balance built into it- more sockets mean less points available for experimentation of condition or encumbrance. It also has a sense of realism to it. If an armor piece has extra sockets shouldn't that come at expenditure of making the piece heavier or less reinforced?

This revision is a suggestion I think should be heavily considered, and the method of resolving the issue is very much open to other ideas. With a dev community more responsive to the playerbase than SWG Live, I feel the devs have more leeway in how to implement a better system. There exists a tremendous number of possibilities for changing the system for the better in a whole host of approaches.

[tuckrr]

BIG AGREE

[skorp]

I agree with your background but I would say a few other things. The fact that so much effort goes into the process of assembling all the looted materials to get a good craft is largely ruined not just because you get a bad roll on sockets but also in the slicing mechanism itself, maybe more of a weapon smithing issue. I'd like something done like using the special bldg rubric and use the YT-1300, as a smuggler bldg, with a bonus to slicing. Really there are some very odd things about slicing that need to be looked at. Like slicing on personal shields. Encumbrance slice means nothing and on a weapon slice that already has max speed getting a speed slice is a big let down.

Back to the suggestion at hand of a redistribution of experimentation points. The idea of a trade off on categories that have little value and putting them towards sockets has merit. I think there was a mechanic in the original live game pre cu that allowed for customization, in tailoring, although I think it was supposed to give a larger color palette option. You could introduce armor customization and have it affect sockets in this manor and add skill tapes that would affect overall customization choices.