The joy of GM Items.

[Bricanni Midst]

I've said it before to in game friends, but I'll say it here, for the record:
The softcap for tradeskills should not be 252...5% should be 5%.

The reason I bring this up is because of the GM Jewelcraft Item. Tonight, my jewelcraft went up from 203-250. I am thrilled that it went up this quickly and that I had the right amount of coffee to keep myself awake.

I saw an Artisan's Seal up for 7.5k, which is a nice low price for my server, Thuloxe Paels. I bought the silver bar and the glass shard...closed my eyes and hit combine.

"You have lacked the skills to fashion these items together."

Wow... <her heart sinks into the deep hole where her 7.5k has just gone>

I'm not quite sure if I have the heart to try that again and fail. I wish that SOE would give us the 5%, so we'd have a better chance at those lovely 300-355 tradeskill combines.

[Bricanni Midst]

Second attempt, this time the Artisan's Seal was made from scratch.

I failed, yet again.

[Itek]

/comfort

that being said ...

1) Geerlok. Same net effect on tradeskills.

2) Bags are nice, but ask any halfling tailor... haversacks are cheaper and Rent-able.

3) 252 < 255 (unsigned byte) and will remain that way (pull up posts by Ngreth on the topic, fairly recent)

4) 252 --> 262 (5% round down) is a 10 point swing, which at max skill gives an effective 10% increase in success rate. Which leads to ...

5) They would just adjust the trivial of the 300+ stuff to keep in line with their objectives.

(No one seems to understand... they didn't come up with the "trivial" for the 300+ items by throwing darts at a board.... Ponder on the phrase "Working as INTENDED" for a moment. The success rates are not a bug they are a feature.)

again... /comfort because I know the pain of watching thousands of plat vanish... when you only -have- thousands of plat and had to borrow the last 500...

[KyrosKrane]

5) They would just adjust the trivial of the 300+ stuff to keep in line with their objectives.

(No one seems to understand... they didn't come up with the "trivial" for the 300+ items by throwing darts at a board.... Ponder on the phrase "Working as INTENDED" for a moment. The success rates are not a bug they are a feature.)

While your last sentence there is technically true, I think it rather misses the point. The argument being presented here is that people who do have the trophy and max raw skill should have better success rates than those with a geerlok and max raw skill. While I agree with that on a "common sense" level, you do have a point about trivials being set with an intended success rate in mind.

This ties in indirectly to some of the discussions we've been having about super-trophies and whether people who get a hypothetical super-trophy should get higher success rates (through a raised cap or a JCM-like effect) than those who are just 250 in one skill. I'll reserve that discussion for the super-trophy thread, though. =)

[Draggar]

From a programming perspective, look at how data is stored.

Computers read hexadecimal, which is a number system that goes from 0 to F (15) in each byte, allowing 10 be equal to 16.

They'se set up 2 bytes for our skill values, which then the highest the computer can say we have is FF, pull out your HEX to DEC converter and you'll get 255. So, without adding an extra byte to everyone's data file, we're looking at a 3 point increase maximum. Who knows, maybe FD (253), FE (254), and FF (255) are being used for something else (not available to the class, available at a certain level, etc,,), so to even to give us one more point, would require every data file to have an extra byte.

No big deal some people may ask? First, assume there is one data file for your tradeskills, how many skills (don't forget melee, spells, lanuages, etc..) are there? Let's say 100, we'll assume everyone has all the skills in their data file (class restrictions make some unviewable, like my Rogue won't be able to see his 00 in Evocation (or maybe it's an FD, FE, FF). This means we'll need an extra 100bytes per server, and with 8 characters per server, then we'll need 800 bytes per server.

Now, a computer disk won't store it in 800 bytes, due to cluster sizes, assuming Sony / Verant has an efficent system, but the cluster size is 4 Kilobytes (average with large drives).

Take the thousands of subscribers on just your server, that's about 40 megabytes per thousand.

It may not seem much when drives today measure 200+ gigabytes, but space is space.

Not only that, do you really want to risk them messing with our tradeskill levels? We've seen "mistakes" hapen before, some don't catch it in time to have it reversed. AAs are lost, levels are lost etc. I wouldn't want to risk it.

[splunge]

I have said this on the eqtraders boards many many times. Ill repeat it yet again, and maybe someone will finally get it...

Trophies are NOT WORTH IT. They do NOTHING. WORTHLESS WORTHLESS WORTHLESS GARBAGE.

Need 50 CHA for selling/buying? Opal encrusted steins are often found on pok pottery merchants for 3p. Buying steins is No-fail.

Need WR bags? Buy Tink bags (5250p), Lemming Fur (couple hundred, depends on server) or Haversacks (5k-7k). You CAN NOT FAIL purchasing a bag. =)
(If you use no-rent bags, you need to be playing something a little simpler like kick-the-can.)

Need 5% to your skill? Buying geerloks is cheap easy and no-fail.

Trophies have NO HP, NO resists, NO mana. You can get FAR FAR better for FAR FAR less for your pri/sec/range slot in about 30 seconds in the bazaar (this too, is no-fail).

Until Trophies become a NO-FAIL combine with a minimum skill requirement of 250, they add some HP/Mana and resists, they will just be useless, very expensive and frustrating junk.

[Bricanni Midst]

I don't want the trophy for the 5%...I have a geerlok.
I don't want the trophy for the WR bag...I have those.
I don't want the trophy for the charisma...I have two stiens and a 40pt buff.
I wanted the trophy for the trophy.

I knew it could be failed, I've heard horror stories about the kiln.
I also know someone who made thier trophy with out a geerlok at the skill of 234...which now makes me want to strangle him.

[Myrron]

Most people I know get trophies just for the sake of having one, not for stats/hp/etc. It's the accomplishment of making one that people are proud of, so I would not write them off as junk. They may not be helpful for a character's stats, but for many people they are far from worthless. As Bricanni put it, she wanted the trophy for the trophy.

--Myrron Lifewarder

[Rerashyaka]

I don't know about completely useless. My main has a baking geerlok in range. She's a bard, though... one of the few classes for which charisma is a useful stat. Of course, I have to admit that I am one of those oddballs that doesn't like to get gear from the bazaar. Everything I have was quested, crafted, or looted from the slowly cooling remains of yon_random_mob. So for me, the trophy represents a goal I attained, an immense amount of a stat I need, and satisfaction that I beat the RNG, at least once. Everyone plays EQ for different things, and one mans junk is another's treasure (just ask the merchant miners).

Of course, if they happened to make a super trophy with AC, hit points and resists, I'd drop my old one like a bad habit.

Rerashyaka Mousekiller
65 Vah Shir Bard
Druzzil Ro

250 baking + (worn) trophy
250 brewing
200 fletching
199 pottery
191 smithing
191 jewelcraft
188 tailoring

[Itek]

Kyros-

No where, in the original two posts or my reply, is there mention of the GM trophy having a greater effect on success than the geerlok. Not at all. Simply not mentioned. I have no IDEA where you got that impression. This is your projection of a pet peeve. Please don't do that while implying I'm saying something I'm not.

The 252 is a HARD cap, not a soft cap. Read Ngreth's post on the subject. It has to do with how the game is currently coded and they have said they don't want to change it.

I personally like my corker. It gives me a nice CHA boost. (50 cha in range? and 10 Int and 10 Str ... and a free bag... ok sounds good. See I'm an enchanter who didn't put points into CHA in the beginning... A -Dark Elf- enchanter ... my base CHA is _70_ ... which makes charming a PAIN.) But I don't expect the trophy to be anything OTHER than a trophy.

Giving extra benefit to the top end people is called "double benefiting" and it's bad. Let me give you an example.

Elemental tradeskill components.

Get it? See only the TOP people can GET there so they get the TOP gear. But they ALSO get to sell the TOP tradeskill stuff too. Not exactly an ideal situation huh?

And again, if they made the max effective skill higher they'd just make the effective trivials higher to keep the same success rate.

Does a bowling trophy make me a better bowler?

Honest... I /comfort the original poster cause I've borrowed 500 plat to make a trophy attempt and watched it flush and go swirling. It's painful no matter how much plat you have. (Unless you have 20 million plat, in which case I'd like to discuss a small loan... say 5% of your net worth?) But the first trophy is useful. Anything after that is Pride/Ego/Self-Flagalation.

[splunge]

Well maybe its just me but i dont need a trophy to feel proud of my accomplishments.
But you cant go into making a trophy, knowing what it does ahead of time, knowing its stats, knowing how bad its failure rate is ahead of time and knowing how freeking stupid expensive it is to make ahead of time and THEN complain about it afterwards.

You KNEW it was a lion when you punched it in the nose. Quit whining about it removing/eating your leg.

Anyways.. anyone have a shovel, and can you help me scrape up the bits of this dead horse? Its starting to smell...

[Lothay]

Play nice kiddies.

Sheath the swords and put away the torches and pitchforks.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Splunge that was a little too inflammatory and over the line. You broke no official rules, though you did try and see how far they would bend. Take a break and come back in a few days.

The new version of the board has ways of me making it a forced break, don't make me do it forced. Just take a break.

[Lickity]

Back to the other topic, the hardcoded 255. This is/was the case. However, it is has been changed for Stat maxes. They told us that 255 was the stat max on WIS/INT, now it is 305, because they changed it. In the coming expansion the Shaman STA buff will take buff over the STA cap /dance. Clearly they are capable of fixing it, they have done it before. As it sits, yes, 255 is a hardcoded cap, but if you can code something, it may take work, but you can recode it.

[Narnar]

I made my JC trophy quite awhile ago, and I'd prefer to have that one item with 50cha to switch out with my Zlandi Heart than having to switch out two slots for the steins. My inventory and bank are always cluttered too, so I don't have space for 2 steins. Anywhere!

Also if you're a rogue you need the trophy for you Grandmaster Assassin's Seal, which is needed for the Master Sketch. So trophies aren't completely useless.