The EVIL Tradeskills!!!

[BrewinPally]

It started small. I run a D&D group in RL, so EQ seemed like the perfect chance to have an adventure for MYSELF for once. So I got myself a paladin and started tearing it up; the elf chicks loved me, orcs feared me...I was in it good. But one day, I decided to take up archery...you know, plaster the mobs from afar and all that. Found out that the only arrows worth the inventory space are player made. A tradeskill, they called it.

Sure. I could do that.

Then I heard there was FOOD that actually increased your STATS. Sweeet! What, I can make that too?

No way, you can make ARMOR?

...Beer?

...Jewelry?

...Dude, you can FISH?

So now, I have to admit that I have a problem. My name is Selyan Shadowbane, and I am a trade-hollic!

I can't stop, folks! I hardly even level anymore, I just park in front of a loom/forge/brewbarrel, skilling up or making things I can sell to make money to keep skilling up...I used to be the highest level in my guild, and now look at me! Level 35 for a month!

Is there a support group or something to ween me off of tradeskilling so I can get out and see the bloody world?

[Malathos]

The nearest thing to a support group are these forums here

However, you'll soon find that you can only get so far with tradeskills before you HAVE to head out into the big wide world to find the components you need.

[Pootle]

Aye - this is the support group!

DOnt worry about the leveling thing, as long as you are enjoying tradeskills, i assure you ther will get to a time where the RNG is being an pain to you and you will want to quite tradeskills for EVER. Then you can go and explore the world and level up!

But you will be back!!!!!!!

250 JC
246 Brewing
212 Tailoring
186 - 191 in ALL others.

[Morani]

I can relate. About two months ago, I realized that the push to clean out some bank space and the subsequent push to "top off" some tradeskills put me more than half way to where I needed to be for the Prayer Shawl quest. Since then, every time I've been on, I've been doing something to work towards the goal of getting my tradeskills high enough to do it.

My latest push has been smithing and I'm nearly done with ornate chain (planning on doing the tunics in the hope that I'll spend less on working though plate). Since I have a decent cash flow but not a large one, I've been farming fine steel to make the HQ ore from. A guildie showed me Sol A after I'd gathered 2 stacks of rings and since then, it's been goblin genocide. When I started, everything conned green or light blue with the occasional dark blue. A few days ago, I dinged 40 and there was a minute or two of confusion when it happened because it'd been so long since I heard that sound. Then a realization hit; "I can tradeskill and get experience from it!!!" Never mind that it took me about 4000 kills to get level 40, I wasn't thinking about the exp. or even the kills at all. As a matter of fact, I noticed that my faction with the Goblins in Sol A had bottomed out a while back and my though on it wasn't that they hate me for kill so many of them but they hate me for stealing their armory.

After ornate chain, I plain on taking a break and working of tailoring for a bit. I'm up to crystalline silks so soon I'll be off to the Crystal Caverns. After looking at the maps and bestiary, I realized I could get some exp. there too.

Hey, maybe by the time I get to hunting the Sirens for their hair I'll stand a chance at fighting them...

[Cigarskunk]

Heh - comming here looking for a support group is about as good an idea as holding an AA meeting at the local bar during Octoberfest.

Don't feel bad, my poor troll started the same way as your pally - did some fishing to kill time while healing, started cooking the fish, needed to fletch my own bow, tailoring raised while making silk swatches to sell to those crazy tradeskill folks, etc

[Reflan]

Tradeskills can be cool, but all-consuming. Be sure to keep in touch with your friends so that when you need a change of pace from all the clicking and farming, you'll still be able to usually find a good group with a few friends in it quickly. Tradeskills can be kind of isolating if you let them.

Just one more click, just one more...and then before you know it, everyone somehow got 15 more levels than you did and you can't group with them anymore at all. Blecch.

To keep everything fun, you definitely need flexibility and lots of open options. Sometimes that's going to probably mean not doing tradeskills even when you really are in the mood for it, maybe for several sessions running. Hey, just be glad if your friends still miss you and still want to invite you along!

I had a devil of a time maxing skills sometimes(and I have a few at 250 by now) when I was all set on an hours-long session, bags organized and full of subcombines, newly purchased KEI on -- and then I would get a /tell from a friend saying I should come join them. Sometimes it's so easy to get really ferociously goal-oriented with trade skills(or just stubborn), and be in danger of forgetting that you're lucky to have invitations to consider turning down in the first place. Don't forget to take up a fair number of them even when you're sometimes not in the mood. After all, you don't really want them to stop asking.

[Lling]

Tradeskills can be cool, but all-consuming. Be sure to keep in touch with your friends so that when you need a change of pace from all the clicking and farming, you'll still be able to usually find a good group with a few friends in it quickly. Tradeskills can be kind of isolating if you let them.

Just one more click, just one more...and then before you know it, everyone somehow got 15 more levels than you did and you can't group with them anymore at all. Blecch.

This is excellent advice. There are times when I see myself doing this - and I have to just back away from the project of the day and relax with my friends. Playing with my friends is more important than that skill points.

[Linea]

tradeskill addiction

tradeskill addiction is REAL and it can hit you HARD. my own interest began way back with my first character, a ranger who did fletching. i got her ALL THE WAY to 167!. then i started my wiz. i heard that since having a high intelligence made you get skill points faster. since i was playing a caster, i decided to get myself some silk and make up a whole set! of raw silk armor. a friend of mine did baking; he was the kind of guy who, when you killed a lion in nkarana and handed him the meat, gave you lion steaks! that was really neat. i ended up doing all of the trade skills to the highest level possible. i camped those brownies in lfay for days to get parts to bake up to 163? i slaughtered zombies in wisp isle and camped merchants in commons (didnt know about Unrest /smacks forehead) and got my pottery to 188. then i heard about the shawl quest. months of pelt farming got my smithing up to 197. i got fletching up to 182? whatever was needed for the quest.

so then i found myself with decent numbers on all my tradeskills. people looked at me with respect when i told them i had 159! in tailoring. then i got the %15 tailoring shears. and of course, since i had the shears it would be a waste if i didnt have a high enough skill to benefit from them. then they released stat-items. i held off and held off. but my numbers were so... inelegant. if only they were all nice, even numbers. after a three month hiatus, i lost it. the tradeskills dragged me back in. i worked them ALL (cept smithing, **** nerf) to 200. then i decided i needed a trophy. enter baking. that was my first GrandMastered skill, and i had the others at 200.

enter PoP. one could spend AA points getting more than one tradeskill to 250. well geez, i sure dont need to work on more tradeskills, and i sure dont need to spend AA points on anything other than character improvement. i was successful on holding off, being content with what i had. after all, i needed to get to 65, get some aa, get a new title. i left tradeskills in the dust for 6 months. never gonna TOUCH another one. not even gonna think about it! a clean break! cold turkey! aint gonna happen, no how no way!

*sigh* it sucked me back in.

spent the points, got my brewing to 250. well since i had the points, i may as well go ahead and work on my tailoring, after all, there arent THAT many GrandMaster tailors. hmmm you know, some of these pottery things they are doing look really fun, ill bet the guild could use a Grandmaster Potter. You know, that Smithing has been sitting here all this time, maybe its time to bump it a point or two; or fifty-three *cry* i'm out of AA points. and the only thing i can think of now, is gee, now i have to group so i can get more AA points. after all, to Grandmaster Jewelcraft all i have to do is sit at the jewelry store, no hardship there! right?

but that will leave fletching sitting there so lonely!

its never going to end

ive easily spent more than 200k getting my tradeskills up. and im not the type to buy them all in the bazaar, i farm my own (mostly)

BrewinPally, i know where this road can lead you. if you intend this road to ever end, DO IT NOW! accept your losses and RUN!

PS combines done to order! PST :roll: