Geerlok Question

[Brodybeard]

Why hasn't Geerlok invented a Geerlok Tinkering Device yet? ;)

[Xeni Vidivici]

Obvious, he didn't need one, why would a gm tinker invent something that has no use to him...

[Doc Dolittle]

Well with this expansion, we do have one. HeHe.

[Axterix EnObelix]

Yah, wish they hadn't added 'em though. Who in their right mind would want to make an item that makes their competition better? You're best served by not selling these, only making 1 for personal use.

[Laearya Lifeblood]

Yah, wish they hadn't added 'em though. Who in their right mind would want to make an item that makes their competition better? You're best served by not selling these, only making 1 for personal use.

Who says you can't just tinker to have fun and make them to help out the community of tinkers on the server though? :) As long as the competition remains healthy and friendly...what harm is there in it, it's no worse than us making all the other geerloks to afftect all the other tradeskillers.

[Axterix EnObelix]

Only one tradeskill matters;) Tinkerin'. So the other geerloks are of no consequence, hehe.

I view the harm in that it makes tinkering still easier. We already have an abundance of cheap, easily farmed recipes, capable of taking us right up to 242, with 2 other recipes, not as easily farmed but still very cheap, that can take us to 250. Now, we add to that an easily farmed and cheap tinkering geerlok.

To me, I can have a community with a smaller number of people that have strived to work something up. There's a bond then, a closeness, that comes from the limited numbers. But consider a tradeskill like JC...where's the community? There isn't one, because anyone can get 250 skill without even having to leave a room.

Anything that is easily acquired has no value.

[PinyonTreedotter]

I fail to see how the tinkering geerlok makes things easier. People switch over to the geerloks at 120-135. The next recipe to use has a trivial of 215. I really don't believe the geerlok will improve the success rate significantly (120 vs 126 or 135 to 141 - both giving about a 5% increase in success rate).

The geerlok is most useful for skilling when the progression is semi-continous, and where the end product can be sold to recover losses. Neither of those conditions hold for geerloks.

I can imagine people with tinkerers using this to create geerloks for themselves or for their alternate characters.

[Vistol Wigglesnout]

To me, I can have a community with a smaller number of people that have strived to work something up. There's a bond then, a closeness, that comes from the limited numbers

Yeah tell that to the people selling mass quantities of gauze presses for 150p on Tunare, or clockwork for 200p, or Geerloks for 5p, or collapsables for 100p :roll:

I'm sorry, I find it hard to be part of a community that keeps undercutting each other, and selling items for BELOW cost. Yes, tinkering is fun, but a few people have ruined it for the rest.

[Axterix EnObelix]

Kind of funny that you quote me to sort of disagree while actually proving my point;)

More people = more undercutting.
Ease and cheapness of Geerloks means there are tons of them on the market.

As far as tradeskills go, tinkering is now one of the easiest ones to raise. Way too easy and cheap, in my opinion.

[PinyonTreedotter]

One of the easiest? I don't think so.

My ranking, from easiest to hardest, is:

Jewelry
Fletching
Brewing
Baking
------------
All of the above can get to 200-ish with only vendor-bought items.

Pottery (easy to 200-ish, very hard after that)
Tinkering
Smithing
Tailoring

I don't know where to put alchemy and poison making, since you can only get 5 skill gains per level. People tend to collect stuff, then do it all at once after they get a level. Fishing is also that way, plus the added benefit that you can't power level fishing due to the long reset time with the pole.

[Darklens]

My ranking, from easiest to hardest, is:

Jewelry
Fletching
Brewing
Baking
------------
All of the above can get to 200-ish with only vendor-bought items.


Ok I can see Jewelry, Fletching, and Brewing to 250 with vendor-bought... But please, enlighten me on how one could level to 250 in Baking with vendor-bought! I know there are a lot of people who would like THAT information! :mrgreen:

[PinyonTreedotter]

Hmmm, I think I said you can get to 200-ish with vendor bought, not 250. That is why I put baking as the hardest of that group, you require farming/foraging for 191+. But the farming is easy, particularly now with the PoK books.

[Calabar]

One qualifier you might want to put with your list is cost. I’ve not tried jewel crafting, though I’ve heard stories, but my ranger’s fletching came to a screeching halt when the vendor sell back prices changed. There is no way in the world I can afford to advance my fletching beyond its current 202 skill level with store bought materials. So for me fletching is not at all easy.

Personally I’d put brewing at the top of the list. You can get to 248 brewing from cheap store bought materials. Granted, you may not be able to use your wrist for at least a week after reaching that point, but it’s very easy to do. Even baking is cheap and easy to do to 250 if you don’t mind taking a looooooong time doing it. There are several recipes in Jaggedpine that will get you there via foraging and/or meat drops from griffons and anaconda.

I’ve played this game for close to two years and I’ve never had a very large bank account. So even though GMing Jewelcraft and Fletching are possible with store bought materials, that only makes the skill easy if you have the money to take advantage of it.

[Axterix EnObelix]

Tinkering is super easy as well. Getting to 215 just requires running around zones where people sell stuff and buying the belts, eyes, and the like. Plenty for sale. Yes, you won't max it in a day. But if you aren't in a rush, it's basically vendor sold. Less precombines than other skills as well. Now there are the new geerloks, which trivial a tad bit higher than the old ones apparantly. Drop rates on parts for them seem pretty high. Coiled springs, another easy to get item, will take you to 242. And 240 is all you need to be maxed effective skill.

I'll stand by my statement that it's one of the easiest to raise. Parts are too easy to come by, what we make costs very little plat. Lot less annoying pre-combines than other tradeskills as well.

[PinyonTreedotter]

I agree with the annoying pre-combines.

Are you asking to go back to the Rebreathers as the only way to get skill increases?

I find Tinkering to be a nice mix of dropped and bought materials. While also annoying, the nonstackable components slow down the skill increases. Even better was when the only Geerlok components were in Katta, so I have to get my lvl 30-ish mage across GF and TM (usually without SoW) to do any.

A short while ago, I sat in Thurgadin for a couple of sessions and got my jewelry from 0 to 200. It cost me about 3kpp (which I more than made up for by foraging tufts of dire wolf). I did the same with brewing (although I actually had to go to a couple different vendors to get the components). I expect to do the same with fletching when the time comes.

We cannot do that with tinkering. While the hunted parts are relatively easy to get, it does take some work: Either vendor diving, hunting, or auctioning.

For my last push in tailoring from 190-ish to 250, I was able to do everything from The Bazaar. Once I changed my strategy from a hunter/tailor to a trader/tailor, I was able to buy everything I needed in The Bazaar. It took me a bit longer, but I was able to get to 250 with a nice stash of cash in the bank. This is not possible with Tinkering.

Too easy? Well, that's a judgement thing. I respect your opinion of that. Gone are the days where there was a single Tinkerer who was known far and wide for her skills -- with people pushing cash at her to make a rebreather. I can understand you wishing for that to be true today. At that time, tinkering was, by far, the most expensive. I still contend that, today, it is in the middle of the pack as far as ease of skill increases.

[Axterix EnObelix]

>>Are you asking to go back to the Rebreathers as the only way to get skill increases?

The days of rebreathers and clockwork watchman, yes, I'd much rather see that. Doesn't mean geerloks shouldn't exist, but their trivial should be appropriate for the price of their parts and ease of getting them...somewhere around 125 at max.

Rebreathers also weren't that bad for skilling up with. The problem with them is and was the weight/size issue. If they weighed 2 or so and were medium sized, people would actually want them. Instead they had to introduce an insulting reason to buy them, the warrior epic. And that artificial reason barely provided enough market for a single gnome per server.

Ease of getting to 250 is bad. Well, the real bad is inability to raise the skill caps...but making getting to 250 easier with every expansion is not a good thing.

>>This is not possible with Tinkering.

I beg to differ. Considering that's basically what I did with tinkering. I stockpiled coiled springs, sold collapsed on my trader mule. And worked my skill up that way, making money every step of the way. I also did a bit of dumpster diving in SH/PoK for geerlok parts, but most of my skill ups came from collapseds. Then, once I hit 242 (and for that, I did lose some money, but nothing previous profits didn't easily cover), I shifted to woks and, once they became available, crab crackers.

That's all it takes for tinkering. A high int to maximize skill ups, a willingness to not force it most of the time, and a bazaar vendor mule.

Now, it's not JC easy. JC is the easist of them all since it has the best sell to merchant prices, everything is vendor sold, and it's 2 stackable items per combine.

Anything that is easy to get has no value. People should be able to take pride in their accomplishments, but for me, when I hit 250, it didn't mean much to me because it had been made too easy by then. And I'm the first 250 on my server. I've got more respect for the guy with 240 skill who did it before PoP. He had to work at it. I had it served to me on a collapsible silver platter.

Most people don't even realize just how easy it is.

[PinyonTreedotter]

I am truly sorry getting to GM tinkering didn't mean much to you. My tinkering is only 195 and I'm enjoying it a lot.

A friend of mine started tinkering back in the day when Fulcrum ran the Compendium (still have a screenshot of him during a tinkering meeting). That was back in the day when attempts with unknown recipes ate your components and when the Tinkering community thought that Verant (now SOE) had hidden recipes to be discovered by, well, tinkering. At the time, people got to catapults and quit. There was only enough market for rebreathers for one tinkerer, and it was whoever had the highest skill on the server. Everyone else was left out in the cold (unless you have several hundred thousand pp just gathering dust).

The sense of community among the tinkerers was awesome, with everyone attempting different recipes that "should" work. Verant really dropped the ball on this one -- they could have done a whole lot for the game is they had wanted. The decline started with Velious. We then saw a lot of powerleveling among some tinkerers in the "uber" guilds. But, by then, that was the nature of EQ overall. It allowed you to get to high levels of tinkering by throwing money at the skill (and having friends/guildies doing the farming in experience zones).

My tinkerer got up to catapults and stopped. I worked on JC for one character (GM), then tailoring on another (GM), when I finally went back to my Gnome. I do miss the old sense of community, but like the idea that I could actually get to GM tinkering. When (if) I get to GM tinkering, I'll look back at my accomplishments and trials along the way and smile a big gnomish grin.

[Yalum]

I really hope they're working to remove the 252 skill cap, that's the only to fix this problem.

[Axterix EnObelix]

>>I am truly sorry getting to GM tinkering didn't mean much to you. My tinkering is only 195 and I'm enjoying it a lot.

*grin* Oh, I love tinkering, always have, probably always will. Most of the times I've returned after quitting the game have been due to guildies needing some tinkering combines done after a new expansion. Tinkering is the only tradeskill that matters.

Just the 250 value doesn't mean as much to me due to the ease of getting it.