40% Drop in Credit Prices, and Slicing Nerf Thoughts

SWTOR has been out for about 2 weeks now, and I'm emerging from the coma of racing to the level cap. It appears that the credit farmers have been busy as well, surely taking advantage of the early Slicing profits.

As I'm sure everyone knows, Slicing was nerfed quite hard this last Tuesday, and the profits from Slicing missions have dropped significantly. I know quite a few people that built a nice nest egg using Slicing from the get-go (I know I was), and money can still be made with it, but more patience needed. If you're sticking with Slicing for the long haul like I am, there's a great Google Doc made by pdfmacros hat breaks down the profitability of each Slicing mission, available here. You may shed a tear if you look at the pre-nerf glory days though.

So how is the exchange market looking? Here's the best prices I've seen today:


That's a pretty significant drop in only 2 weeks! The farmers are clearly working hard, and making use of every advantage they can get. Kind of puts the Slicing nerf in a different light, and its interesting to me that BioWare may be looking at this type of data, and acting on it, already.

The price per credit has gone from $0.00085 to $0.00048, a 40% drop! As you can see in the image above, the benchmark I like to use for credit value, the 1 Million Credit VIP Wristband, will now only cost $453.60! That's still about 2.5X the price of a Collector's Edition, so it's hardly worth spending the credits on at this time.

One thing worth noting in this game is that training skills, particularly riding, is awfully expensive. Using the current prices, the cost of riding alone is worth in the ballpark of $250. Is the top tier of riding worth it right now? Is the second tier? With only a 10% increase at each level, it may not be just for leveling up, unless Outlaw's Den is super competitive on your server and you need to run away/run people down frequently. After a recent run-in I had there, I dropped the 330,000 credits for Tier 3 riding immediately upon hitting 50, but that's entirely a personal decision.

Where these prices go post-nerf is anyone's guess, but they'll ultimately continue to go down. There's still some easy ways to make money in the game (Treasure Hunting seems to be the next big thing), and as more peole hit the level cap and start crafting high-end gear, new ways to cash in will be found. Speaking of that, time get back to REing some Mods. I've got a market to corner.

Credit/USD Exchange Rate Skyrockets

This was predictable. With EGA well underway, the exchange rate of Credits to USD has gone through the roof, although one could argue that this is the initial strike price, which it really is. Here's one of the cheaper price lists I found this morning:

Let's see, 100k Credits for $85. That's not a great deal of credits once you get to higher levels, so its clear that the farming operations are no further along than the average Joe in EGA is. But, they're selling, so you can be sure they're out there in droves 24/7.

I outlined the "true value" of a few credit sinks in my last post, which have clearly gone up. Let's take a look at where they stand now:

First tier of riding skill - 40,000 Credits, or $34.00

VIP Wristband - 1,000,000 Credits, or $850.00

Mount for sale in VIP area - 1,500,000 Credits, or $1275.00

Average Slicing lockbox found on Coruscant/Droumond Kaas - 2,000 Credits, or $1.70

First Row of Inventory Expansion - 5,000 Credits, or $4.25

Maybe I should get into the business of selling Digital Deluxe serial numbers for $200 and call it a "VIP Wristband Discount". It'd be a relative steal at this point!

I'll post up more interesting stats as they come available. One thing is for certain though: The market is about as volatile as the after effects of a trip to Taco Bell. This market should correct itself as the month goes on, but right now, enjoy your exclusive VIP access if you have it - it won't stay very exclusive forever!

SWTOR Credit/USD Exchange Rate

I've long studied the world of Real Money Trading (RMT) aka gold buying. It's truly a global black market, operating outside the view of normal "society" (in this case, outside of SWTOR), and has shown to be full of innovative people who keep finding ways to stay in business and presumably stay profitable.

I'm not going to beat around the bush or anything. RMT will exist for every MMO, and it's already here for SWTOR. Forget the ideological debates, it's not going away, so deal with it. The fact that one can already purchase credits before the game is already out, however, speaks to the confidence that the RMT brokers (or farmers, if you like) have in this games success, and as a platform for their own profitability.

So, what's a credit going for anyways these days?

100,000 Credits for $3.00US. That's $0.00003 per credit. Pretty astonishing, isn't it? Let's break it down in some in-game terms.

First tier of riding skill - 40,000 Credits, or $1.20

VIP Wristband - 1,000,000 Credits, or $30

Mount for sale in VIP area - 1,500,000 Credits, or $45

Average Slicing lockbox found on Coruscant/Droumond Kaas - 2,000 Credits, or $0.06

First Row of Inventory Expansion - 5,000 Credits, or $0.15

I find looking at in-game purchases this way helps me properly evaluate whether I'm spending my money wisely or not, and if the value for an item is appropriate for the cost. Looking at this data, I think it's pretty safe to say that the VIP area is not worth $30 (that's 2 months of game time!), and the mount available within will be a relative status symbol for quite some time (assuming its exclusive there, I'm not sure if it is).

It'll be interesting to see where this exchange rate goes once the game releases. I believe it's going to go up, simply due to the number of preorders, which brings along a certain percentage of credit buyers with it. The question is, where is the hot spot to farm credits going to be? I could use a place to practice communicating in Chinese.

Thoughts on Mods, Cybertech and Endgame

BioWare published a lot of information about their thoughts on the mod system on the forums yesterday (available here), which really got me thinking about how this will all play out once the majority of the player base is in endgame content. Here's my thoughts about it, and how this will affect Cybertech in particular.

The most important part of the post, to me, is where they discussed how they're handling raid gear from being ravaged for the mods in them. They state that they don't want people farming the same boss for mods, but don't want to prevent people from having the look they want. They state:

So, instead of letting that happen, we prevented the Armoring, Hilt and Barrel from being extracted, but we also made sure of dropping purple Armoring mods of equivalent power as Operation loot. This means that players going the mod route can still take their favorite orange armor and make it as good as a operation purple armor (with some temporary caveats).

This sounds great to me, and I'm sure most people will agree. I like looking a certain way, and a system like this will let me do what I want. Fantastic!

Only one catch. Crafting crew skills seem to be becoming more and more worthless by the day (and the game isn't even out!), and this may be a fatal blow to any notion of Cybertech being a profitable profession.

As it stands now, at endgame, Hilts, Barrels and Armoring are going to be pretty pointless to craft. Sure, you could craft some starter lvl50 mods of this type and eek out a living, but people will quickly figure out where the action is, and this market will never mature. Other mods, like, enhancements and, uh, mods, might thrive a bit better, but I think they're going to suffer a similar fate, especially if any gear at all in raid content has removable "secondary" mods.

What this means to Cybertechs is that the mod market will never be as lucrative as, say, the WoW Jewelcrafting or Enchanting market, simply because there will be alternative ways to get mods, and likely better mods at that. I really hope BioWare understands that they're neutering crafting skills by doing things like this, and decides to put schematic drops in raids (which don't require many/any raid materials to craft), as this would likely be the only way Cybertechs would be able to make money going forward.

If Cybertechs do get left out in the cold though, the mods they can craft will only be desirable for leveling, which won't be a very lucrative market after a while. This stands to be about as profitable as the "gear" crafting professions like Armstech and Synthweaving, which will largely be making gear for cosmetic purposes and to gear up alts.

All that being said, Cybertech, even in this form, is still an excellent crew skill choice. It still is the only profession with craftable mounts, and the grenades will likely be a key PvP skill, and likely have some great rotation-filler utility in PvE as well. I also have faith that BioWare will realize that crafting skills, aside from Biochem, will quickly become obsolete if they don't do anything to keep them fresh and exciting, and I'm sure we'll see some interesting schematics added to them over time.

Crew skills aside, I'm very excited about how mods are going to work, and I really look forward to finding that one special set of gear that I love the looks of, and gear it up to the teeth. I just hope we don't see legions of dudes playing female characters in the metal slave bikini, although I fear that's inevitable.

1 to 20ish Leveling Tips

I've played a LOT of SWTOR over the past two weekends, and decided to organize my thoughts into a loose collection of notes. This is a fairly unorganized list of the things I want to keep in mind while leveling through the first few planets, as I think doing a few things here or there will really pay off, and make the whole experience much more fun (at least to people like me). If you're looking for a few tips to help you out as you start leveling up, great, I hope they help! If you find I made some mistakes (I'm sure I did!), feel free to comment and correct me, or add your own thoughts.

Note: I primarily played a Jedi Counslar, so there may be some inaccuracies with other classes.

Social - Don't be antisocial. Group up with people, do quests, and have fun. You'll get social points. Get to Social rank 1 before leaving starter world, which if you group up for the Heroic 2-person quests should be no problem, and Social 2 by the end of Coruscant/Droumond Kaas (if you can, that's a lot harder). Social 1 gives you access to moddable head gear on Coruscant/DK (light armor type, female only Republic side, male only Sith side) around level 10 for credits. Next head gear isn't easily available till 20.

PVP - Doing Warzones sporadically from 15-20 to stock up Warzone Commendations is a good idea. These do cap out at a fairly low amount (I forget exactly how many). You want to buy a new weapon at lvl 14 (which will be an upgrade over whatever you have, and you can likely replace a mod or 2 to make it even better) and pvp armor at level 20 (namely, the moddable chest and legs and your first headpiece. The bracers/belt/boots/etc are optional, but still good). The lvl 20 gear doesn't have pvp stats on it, but comes with high-end mods, and it's about 2 Warzones per piece. This gear is of the right armor class, so you'll replace your head here, at the very least. Warzones give easy xp and credits too, so its not a waste of time. Good to do if you find you're a little underpowered for where you currently are.

Space Combat - This is faceroll easy XP once you get your starship. Before attempting the first set of missions, buy all the Rank 1 spaceship upgrades from a vendor. There's a vendor on the faction space station (maybe in cities too, dont know). You can skip the Armor upgrade as that's a reward from the first mission, and you'll be fine without it for one mission. The upgrades help IMMENSELY and turn space combat into an xp machine while you have quests for them, but it's not as great once you finish the quests (still easy xp tho). Always keep the upgrades maxed out by whatever the vendors have available. Don't overpay for upgrades on the AH, which is never a good place to go shopping while leveling.

Questing - Pretty obvious what to do here, but if you're given a bonus quest (usually kill X of some sort of enemy), always, always do it. Better XP and other rewards await, and it'll keep you leveling at a good pace. This is especially true for the “tiered” bonus quests, where finishing one bonus unlocks another immediately.

Quest Rewards - If you can pick a commendation as a quest reward, take it, and go browse the commendation vendors in major cities, or on the space station which has a vendor for each type of commendation. The commendation weapons and armor should always be an upgrade for the level its usable at, you can often find moddable gear, and you can buy really nice mods with them as well, better than what you'll find on the AH sometimes, and much cheaper. Otherwise, take whatever gear is the biggest upgrade for either you or your companion. See next subject.

Companions - This is a complex subject, so i'm going to break it down a bit:

- Gearing Companions - There's a couple schools of thought here. One is just give them hand-me-downs. This is ok, but not optimal. The second is give them quest rewards, and going by biggest upgrade between you and your companion. This is a solid approach, should keep your “team” balanced. Third is to get them into as much moddable gear as possible, and keep upgrading their mods, through whatever source is available. This is probably the most optimal, but also most expensive. If you just use green vendor mods, it should be ok enough. Make friends with a Cybertech and this should work even better.

- Which Companion to Use - Until you get your ship, you have no choice. Once you do, you get a droid which can heal, which is a big help. The downside is this companion isn't really a true companion, as you don't gain affection points with him, which is a big deal to some people (mission skills can make up whatever you lose tho). If you're a pure DPS class and find that you're slowing down a lot though, he's a good option. Aside from the ship droid, use whichever companion seems best, especially if things are moving along smoothly. Do be aware that each companion has a primary stat (the ship droid is Aim, for instance), and gear them accordingly.

- Gearing droid companions - Do note that droids use different gear than living companions, like motors, cores, parts, so you'll need to gear them up accordingly. In Coruscant (and I assume DK), you can pick up 3 droid parts, each with 3 mod slots, easily and cheaply (one is for commendations, others are for credits). These can last you as long as you like, as you can simply keep upgrading the mods in them. The ship droid is pretty weak until you upgrade him as much as you can, so be sure to pick these up asap, especially if you have no other healing companions.

Modding - Always upgrade your mods, but don't go nuts. Some gear you'll get will be better than your modable gear, so just use it. Hold onto 3-4 modable slot gear though, as they may come in handy again. When modding, pay special attention to hilt/barrel/armoring slots, as these will upgrade things like armor and weapon damage, and will always be the biggest upgrade. If you're gonna spend big money somewhere, those are the components to spend it on, especially for weapons.

Stats - Be aware of your primary stat. Here's a quick breakdown:

SW - Strength

BH - Aim

IA - Cunning

SI - Willpower

As far as secondary stats go, don't worry about them too much while leveling, the primary stats are significantly more important. Just try to pick gear that best enhances your primary stat, and let everything else fall where it may. Save the min/maxing for endgame.

Professions - There's a couple starting strategies, either pick up 3 gathering and make money, or level one up while leveling. Do whatever you like, there's no wrong choice. If you like money though, pick up Slicing. It's free money by the boatfull as you level it up. Ride it all the way to 50 as you'll always come across slicing boxes, and will be pulling in loads of cash. At 50, if you feel financially secure, you can always drop it.

Mission skills are interesting and are worth mention. They're very expensive to start, but at endgame once you have a source of income, they can be very useful. Diplomacy is good enough so you could pick all light-side options while leveling, and still be completely dark-side in points. Also, the affection gifts for companions come quickly, so don't worry if you piss off your buddy too much. I'd still say hold off on these though, unless you have a goal of hitting Dark V really fast (which isn't a bad idea, there's lots of great gear available from the light/dark vendors, just its an investment).

Light/Dark Side - Not a big choice here, really. Do what you like. The gear from the light/dark vendors is identical in stats, but looks different. I didn't think the Republic light side gear was any worse than the dark side though, but that's just my take. Diplomacy can speed it along and fix mistakes. Also, you can make repeat light/dark decisions in lower-level Flashpoints to grind some out, but that's to the tune of 250 points for about 30 mins of work, not really cost effective.

In conversations, if you have 2 light/dark options available, be aware that one can be worth more points than the other. If you think you screwed up, hit Escape, try again and see (but that's cheating!)

The big thing with light/dark is the gear, which opens up at different ranks and levels. The Light/Dark 1 gear kinda sucks, but beyond that it gets good. There's some Relics available at 19 (I think) that require Light/Dark 2, so keep an eye out for those. These are the first Relics you'll likely get.

Oh, and Dark Side makes you look more evil. You can toggle this off tho if you hate emo makeup and red/yellow eyes. Light Side gets the shaft here. They should have had Twilight sparkleskin. Also, Dark cant use blue/green crystals, and Light can't use red. Unless the weapon came with those colors then its fine. If you stay neutral, you miss out on a lot of gear, but you get to use red and blue AT THE SAME TIME!!!

One final light/dark note, I noticed a few dark side items on the AH, but no light side. This was Republic side, where light will likely be more common, but I just found it interesting. I'm not sure if this means that light gear isn't desirable on the Sith side, or it'll be rarer and more expensive due to demand and more dark gear being available. Time will tell.

UI/Mods/Macros - There's no UI modifications, mods, or macros available at launch. Sadface.jpg. I personally like macros for things like off-GCD abilities and Relics (Trinkets in WoW terms), so you'd need something else to handle those for you. If you have a G13 or an N52, use them. The software for both lets you macro commands, so you can get some functionality that way. Also, there's SO MANY FREAKING ABILITIES in this game per class, you'll want an easy way to manage them anyways. You'll run out of shift, alt-shift, and alt abilities, and fingers before that.

Datacrons - Datacrons are glowing boxes on the ground that give you permanent stat boosts, or things called Data Matrices which you can combine into permanent stat boosts (because just finding these things isn't enough of a chore by itself!) If you see them, get them. If you don't, look for them later. Some are in precarious spots, so they can take a lot of time to figure out how to get to them without dying. Some are impossible to get solo too, so if it seems like there's a trick, don't beat yourself up for very long. Best option is if you can't get them easily, come back later when you're higher level with a friend who also needs them, and you should have less trouble.

Credits - You're going to need a lot of credits for when you hit 25. Here's some estimates:

- Riding Skill - 40k credits

- Mount - 8k credits (unless you have one from Digital Download/CE)

- Training - 5-6k credits

Be frugal with your credits. The last thing you want is to be that guy running everywhere once everyone has their mounts.

Final Notes - This game gets really complex really fast if you let it. Going in with a solid game plan will pay off, be it through having a bunch of credits or a set of gear you actually like looking at. In short, here's a brief list of what I discussed above of what I think are the most important tips:

- Pick your professions once you get to the space station. Do what pleases you, but take slicing.

- Upgrade yourself/your companion with quest rewards

- Try to keep some 3-4 slot modable gear handy, use it if its better or cheap to make better.

- Every couple of levels, visit the commendation vendors, look for significant upgrades

- Before leaving a planet after finishing (or afterwards on the space station), blow your commendations on mods. Commendations are useless once you finish a planet, but the mods are generally good for several levels to come, especially if you have a lot of modable gear.

- At lvl 13, do a bunch of warzones so you can get a weapon upgrade at 14.

- Once you get your ship, gear it up with vendor parts, and then do all the space mission quests.

- Pick a side, light or dark, and stick with it.

- Group up as much as possible, ESPECIALLY in the starter zone.

- Do flashpoints if you can find a group quickly enough

- At lvl 19, do a bunch of warzones to get commendations for armor at 20. Its that good.

- Enjoy the content, take time, it's a long game with a lot going on, and you'll want to see it all.

Beta is Over!

The SWTOR beta ended on 12/4, and now we're in a holding pattern for the official release. I'm very excited, but I can't say how much longer I can wait before I explode like Malak did all over Taris. I'm sorry, that's too soon, it's only been 300 years.

Anyways, here's what I was doing as the servers went down. That's right, a dance party. That's how beta ended.