This is a proposed overhaul of gear crafting for Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). It aims to standardize crafting, simplify it to be understandable, and keep various variables flexible to adjust to the evolving game economics.
We first begin by discussing the principles behind the design before diving into the crafting process. Some attempt is made to retain existing elements in the game, but we will not be striving to save everything. The final design will look familiar but behind the scenes some overhaul will probably be required.
Design Principles
In this preliminary step we will address The Role of Crafting, and compare The Role of Loot Compared to Craft.
The Role of Crafting
Before we present any crafting framework, we first start by envisioning how Crafting fits into the game. Basically, there are two ways to get gear: Loot (any sort of reward from playing the game) and Craft (using the Crafting system).
Ideally, both and Loot and Craft should both be viable without one dominating the other. However since this is typically difficult to achieve without players eventually identifying and focusing on whichever is easier to get their best-in-slot endgame gear, we will instead make Loot and Craft complementary and in the case of finalizing best-in-slot endgame gear, both are ultimately necessary. Because we will make Crafting a necessity, we will also have to be careful that it does not dominate the game such that those who want to actively play the content do not feel they are spending too much time figuring out and managing the more passive crafting time.
And because we will make Looting a necessity, we have to be careful that those who want to focus on Crafting do not feel they must personally be able to participate in the most difficult content.
We further make a distinction with Crafting compared to what you can get from Loot: Crafting lets you customize what you want, whereas with Loot, you get what drops and either use it or Deconstruct it.
Finally, Crafting will be affected by Tech Level. This adjusts the ease of crafting and the type of materials as new gear tiers are introduced to the game. We will save this discussion for the very end of this article once all the other elements are in place and presented.
The Role of Loot Compared to Craft
For Loot drops,
For tiers of gear, we have White, Green, Blue, Purple, and Gold. It needs to be made clear to players that while there are higher tiers, not everyone needs them for the content that they want to play.
This is important!
This is necessary to manage expectations of what is easily achieved from both Loot and Craft. If someone is consistently playing at a low tier, their expectation must be that they will not quickly reach the highest tiers of gear, if at all. And that they won't need it at all.
Without management of these expectations, there will be pressure for everyone to be able to get everything no matter what their needs or skill. Then this diminishes the achievements of those with the determination and skill and time investment to get those better rewards.
A suggested table for Loot drops is:
Similarly for Craft,
Crafting Overview
We first begin by discussing the principles behind the design before diving into the crafting process. Some attempt is made to retain existing elements in the game, but we will not be striving to save everything. The final design will look familiar but behind the scenes some overhaul will probably be required.
Design Principles
In this preliminary step we will address The Role of Crafting, and compare The Role of Loot Compared to Craft.
The Role of Crafting
Before we present any crafting framework, we first start by envisioning how Crafting fits into the game. Basically, there are two ways to get gear: Loot (any sort of reward from playing the game) and Craft (using the Crafting system).
Ideally, both and Loot and Craft should both be viable without one dominating the other. However since this is typically difficult to achieve without players eventually identifying and focusing on whichever is easier to get their best-in-slot endgame gear, we will instead make Loot and Craft complementary and in the case of finalizing best-in-slot endgame gear, both are ultimately necessary. Because we will make Crafting a necessity, we will also have to be careful that it does not dominate the game such that those who want to actively play the content do not feel they are spending too much time figuring out and managing the more passive crafting time.
And because we will make Looting a necessity, we have to be careful that those who want to focus on Crafting do not feel they must personally be able to participate in the most difficult content.
We further make a distinction with Crafting compared to what you can get from Loot: Crafting lets you customize what you want, whereas with Loot, you get what drops and either use it or Deconstruct it.
Finally, Crafting will be affected by Tech Level. This adjusts the ease of crafting and the type of materials as new gear tiers are introduced to the game. We will save this discussion for the very end of this article once all the other elements are in place and presented.
The Role of Loot Compared to Craft
For Loot drops,
- The content you are playing should prepare you for the next harder content.
- You must not need better gear than what you can Loot for the content you are playing now.
- In comparison to Craft, Loot is fast to acquire, but random.
- In comparison to Craft, Loot is prefabricated.
Example: Solo overland questing should primarily provide white gear as Loot, and Green gear for slightly harder content or much lower random chance. That Green gear should not be necessary for overland questing but instead make Veteran Flashpoints (the next tier of harder content) easier.
For tiers of gear, we have White, Green, Blue, Purple, and Gold. It needs to be made clear to players that while there are higher tiers, not everyone needs them for the content that they want to play.
This is important!
This is necessary to manage expectations of what is easily achieved from both Loot and Craft. If someone is consistently playing at a low tier, their expectation must be that they will not quickly reach the highest tiers of gear, if at all. And that they won't need it at all.
Without management of these expectations, there will be pressure for everyone to be able to get everything no matter what their needs or skill. Then this diminishes the achievements of those with the determination and skill and time investment to get those better rewards.
A suggested table for Loot drops is:
- Tier W: Overland content, Story Mode Flashpoints drop White gear with chance of Green and smaller chance of Blue
- Tier G: Veteran Flashpoints drop Green gear with chance of Blue, all bosses drop Blue gear with chance of Purple
- Tier B: Story Mode Operations and Master Mode Flashpoints drop Blue gear with chance of Purple, all bosses drop Purple gear with a chance of Gold materials
- Tier P: Veteran Operations drop Purple gear, all bosses drop Gold gear
Tier P is the last tier for drops. It prepares players for Master Mode operations with Gold drops and ideally players will feel they want to further customize with crafted gear to optimize stats.
- The content you are playing should provide what you need for the next tier of crafting.
- In general, to acquire the materials for higher tiers of crafting, you need to play harder content (but see below).
- In comparison to Loot, Craft is slow to manufacture. An item might take 1 hour to craft. Even this might be too generous as players can queue multiple crafters thereby effectively shortening the time-per-unit.
- In comparison to Loot, Craft is customized.
Example: To Craft White gear, you need simple White schematics and simple White materials. To Craft the next tier of Green gear, you have to research Green schematics and use Green materials. Green materials can always be obtained by Reverse Engineering Green gear.
Since Loot is random, players who receive an "undesirable" gear drop can Reverse Engineer it to get material with which they can craft. For example, a Purple item would Reverse Engineer into White, Green, Blue and Purple materials.
To adjust how common Crafted gear will be compared to Loot, the quantity from Reverse Engineering can be adjusted compared to how much is required to Craft. For example, to maintain a 3:1 ratio of "exchanging" three pieces of random Purple gear to get one piece of specific Crafted gear, then Reverse Engineering Purple gear could:
- Give 1 unit of purple material while Crafting Purple gear will require 3 units of purple material.
- Have a 33% chance of giving 1 unit of purple material, while Crafting Purple gear will require 1 unit of purple material.
A single piece of gear is actually several components, so Reverse Engineering would deconstruct them all. For example, a Force Focus is a Shell, Armoring, Mod, Enhancement, Colour Crystal, and possibly also an Augment. Looted gear cannot have items pulled out but are still treated as having multiple components. Each component gets Reverse Engineered separately when determining how much material is recovered.
A Crafting Skill will be required to Reverse Engineer, but to ease the process, Loot drops will be Bind to Legacy on Equip.
Unlike Loot drops we will allow Craft to jump ahead as far as Purple gear without the player actually having to play harder content. This is because we recognize that players will typically not want to grind out gear (whether from Loot or Craft) just to get past content as hard as veteran Flashpoints. Many players will want to try their hand at Story Mode Operations and maybe some of the easier Master Mode flashpoints, which we will approximately set at requiring Purple Gear.
Now that we have established some design principles, we present an overview of crafting. Two main types of items can be crafted, to support the distinction of Crafted gear as being customizable:
- Mods - A catch-all term for Armorings, Barrels, Hilts, Mods, Enhancements, and Augments. All these we will collectively call "Mods".
- Shells - All schematics are white but must be purchased or Reverse Engineered from an existing item. Shells are empty of mods but may be part of a Set and contribute to a set bonus.
It should not be necessary to use Crafted gear, but for players who want to adjust their stats themselves, Crafting is necessary and done by filling a Shell with Mods of their choice.
Additionally, Looted gear cannot be customized in that it does not have slots where mods can be removed or replaced.
Crafting Mods
To craft a Mod, a crafter requires a Schematic and Materials. The type and quality of the Mod determines the type of material required.
Acquiring and Learning Schematics:
- Suppose a crafter wants to make Versatile Armoring. They can acquire a White quality schematic by:
- Reverse Engineering any Versatile Armoring.
- A piece of gear that may contain Versatile Armoring cannot be used. That Armoring mod must be removed first. In the came of Looted gear, this is not possible, so a Crafter may have to buy a Versatile Armoring mod from an NPC vendor to get started.
- Slicing mission critical result (i.e., researching or stealing one, for Light Side or Dark Side points respectively)
- Their ability to craft the White Versatile Armoring does not begin at 100%. They must improve their success rate by:
- Attempting to craft the item. Both success and failure can advance learning toward 100%,.
- Reverse Engineering more samples of the item.
- Reading more Schematics for the item.
- Once the crafter's ability to craft the item reaches 100%, they automatically learn how to craft a Green Versatile Armoring. Repeat the process to acquire Blue, Purple, and Gold schematics.
Suggested Required Material Ratios:
- White Schematic: 2 Green
- Green Schematic: 4 Green
- Blue Schematic: 3 Green, 1 Blue
- Purple Schematic: 2 Green, 1 Blue, 1 Purple
- Gold Schematic: 1 Green, 1 Blue, 1 Purple, 1 Gold
Sources of Materials: (other than Reverse Engineering gear)
- Green: Gathering Node or Gathering Crew Skill
- Blue: Mission Skills
- Purple: Mission Skills critical result or Conquest reward
- Gold: Operations and Master Mode Flashpoints
Crafting Shells
To craft a Shell, a crafter requires a Schematic and Materials. The process of acquiring and learning schematics, and the ratios and sources of materials, are the same as for Mods (see previous section). Since Looted gear cannot be customized, Reverse Engineering a piece of gear typically results in learning a Schematic for the Shell rather than any mods that are integrated.
Shell quality does not matter. It is strictly for fashion.
Shell quality matters for the Set bonus -- The quality of the item determines the maximum bonus that can be active:
Shell quality matters for the Set bonus -- The quality of the item determines the maximum bonus that can be active:
- White: Does not count toward any set bonus
- Green: 2-piece Sets require this quality to be active.
- Blue: 4-piece Sets require this quality to be active.
- Purple or Gold: 6-piece Sets require this quality to be active.
Alternatively, add a slot on gear for a Set Bonus Item that is separately crafted and implanted into the piece of gear.
Crafting Sets
Sets are an item slotted into a shell, like an Enhancement or Augment. The Set item is taken from Reverse Engineering an item with that set, or in the case of certain sets, crafted.
Technology Level
The above relates to the "current technology level". For example, with Onslaught we are at Technology Level 11, requiring Grade 11 materials.
For older technology -- if someone wanted to craft them, for whatever reason -- the rate of learning would be increased to reflect that the technology is no longer the standard and the knowledge is more broadly known. And the older materials would be cheaper to barter from the Jawa Junk vendors since they are no longer in demand.
So suppose the learning rate at the current Technology Level is 10% for a successful crafting attempt and 5% for a failed crafting attempt. For one Technology Level below, it could be doubled to 20%/10%. For two Technology Levels below, it could be doubled again to 40%/20%, etcetera
Similarly, time cost of crafting could also be reduced for the obsolete Technology Levels.
For older technology -- if someone wanted to craft them, for whatever reason -- the rate of learning would be increased to reflect that the technology is no longer the standard and the knowledge is more broadly known. And the older materials would be cheaper to barter from the Jawa Junk vendors since they are no longer in demand.
So suppose the learning rate at the current Technology Level is 10% for a successful crafting attempt and 5% for a failed crafting attempt. For one Technology Level below, it could be doubled to 20%/10%. For two Technology Levels below, it could be doubled again to 40%/20%, etcetera
Similarly, time cost of crafting could also be reduced for the obsolete Technology Levels.
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