I can only comment as a 10 point smith. I've never used a single skill tape to produce my weapons.
As I played around with components and some weapons, I have come to the following conclusions:
1) Masters with Experimentation tapes would have a corner on the market with today's, One Day, system.
2) There was a reduction in critical failures upon initial assemblies.
3) There was an INCREASE in Moderate, Success and Good Successes when investing experimentation points.
4) In the previous system, a Great Success would nearly always give +7%, sometimes +8% per experimentation point. Now they are giving 5% or 6% and rarely 7%.
5) There was NO FIX for Moderate Successes, the main complaint of Master Weaponsmiths. The Moderate Successes are the determination results that usually give a +3% or +4% increase in the total % of the damage/speed line BUT nearly always wound up making damage, speed, condition, ranges, ham WORSE despite pushing the total % of the damage/speed line higher.
*** THIS IS THE #1 Priority to fix in the WS Crafting & Experimentation system and IT WAS NOT FIXED, it was made WORSE. ***
6) Advanced Weapon Stocks were NOT fixed as promised.
My anaylsis is that any master without skill tapes would have been totally screwed if this system of today was made live permenantly and the price of skill tapes would have skyrocketed.
In the past, using all my best of shift resources, I was ALWAYS able to max out the damage/speed line with my resources. In trying every sub-component and playing around with a bunch of other weapons using pre-made components I had and did not use in the late hours last night after the announcement was made to make this a one day thing, I could not even come close to maxing out damage/speed ONCE.
This is NOT what they said would be possible with the new system They stated you would be able to max damage and speed as long as you had great resources and not invest anymore points into other areas such as condition, or ideal range or ham, which, IMHO, is not necessary. Any extra points should only be put into condition to give your customer a weapon that will give them as much use as possible.
I see the main problem with today's system is the reduction of % increases from Great Successes. I noticed NO difference, infact, on the bit of experimenting I did, I'd say the frequency of Great Successes is today even LOWER than before. And on top of this, they hardly ever gave me +7%, it was nearly always +5% or +6%. In the past I usually got 90% of the time Greats or Moderates. The frequency of the moderates is what made it so difficult and fusterating to make schematics and made me stray away from custom projects, as there was no way I could guarantee ideal results with the detrimentation effects of Moderate Successes.
Summary: This is a very pathetic system, unless you have the skill tapes to compomise for the reduction of % bumps from Great Successes.
- There was a reduction in the number of Critical Failures, this is the only thing the devs delivered upon. They should do another Hot Fix to keep this Live and this only.
- Their position that today's system would allow a greater variety in weapons is a blatent display of not fully testing their system. There is no way a Master with only 10 points could compete with one with 11 or 12 or more. Those who were not Masters, would be producing EVEN WORSE weapons than they could yesterday. I'd express some amount of fusteration but the total lack of thought and R&D into this One Day crafting system proves to me the devs are WAY out of touch with crafters when it comes to our needs.
- It took me 12 attempts, due to the reduction of % boosts from Great Successes to even max out an Advanced Power Handler and I could not get anywhere close to prior APH stats which I could max out with only 9 experimentation points just yesterday.
I SINCERELY recommend to the devs that they don't even consider making anymore changes to the crafting and experimentation system for 2 more publishes and to work with crafters on fine tuning what WE need, not what the devs think we need.
My advice to crafters with skill tapes, today is your day to make some schematics!!!! Go for it!
Asiduo
Frikazo
Clásico
Veterano
Freak
