Tradeskill AA's

[Zacatac]

Although I have done well in my tradeskills over the years, it seems of late that being a 250 smith with trophy is no longer good enough.

A_player_01 /auc Looking for 250 smith with Blacksmithing Mastery-3 and Salavage-3!

I'm a rather casual player. I don't have elemental flags, KT+, or many other high xp zones. And quite frankly, I'm probalby not going to spend 33 AA's just so random_player_01 can ask me to do combines for them. Seriously, the 33 AA's would take me 4 months to do.

If I was in some big raiding guild that had rewarded me with flags, full set of high level equipment, and high end access and the guild leader asked me nicely if I could get the AA's to do guild combines, then I'd probably do it.

But if my max skill isn't good enough anymore. So be it. I plan to use any AA's I get to increase my function as a magician, not as a tradeskiller.

[Angelsyn]

I do all my own Smithing combines, always have. I've failed 2 White-Gold Inlays out of some 15+ attempts. I've failed a couple of Livestone & Inferno combines, but succeeded on lots more.

I'm ages and ages away from even getting level 59, much less Blacksmithing Mastery.

While I like knowing Jewelcrafters & Poison Makers who have the AAs, they're just not that vital to me.

[Cerpicio]

If I spent a lot of money or a lot of time getting the ingredients for a tough combine, I'd want the best darn smith I could find. If you don't want to do it, fine, but don't get mad at him for wanting the best smith possible.

Plus, I'd think a smith with that many AAs could charge a nice fee for doing the combine.


-- C.

[Verdandi]

I agree, Zac. I don't blame any player for wanting the best chance of success they can get. But I deeply regret that experience has wormed its way into tradeskills, so that this last bastion of the casual player has been turned into just another exp grind. Now not only can I not go to the zones my old friends are playing in and not even begin to compare my gear to theirs, I can't even tradeskill as well as they can. That used to be what they would come to me for, my chance to see their familiar faces again before they ran back to the exclusive zone du jour. Now all I get are the usual tells asking about whatever it is they're wanting made, plus an inquiry about what kind of chance their guildie with the AAs out the wazoo will have.

I miss them. I miss being useful to them. I miss being among the best at tradeskills, if at nothing else.

[KyrosKrane]

I wonder ... would it be possible, or even desirable, to implement a quest method of getting the masteries? Something long, hard, and highly irritating, so that it would take about the same length of time as grinding AA, but not require any level-specific content (so no combat). If you complete the quest, you get level 1 mastery in a tradeskill of your choice. Two additional quests allow you to get level 3 mastery. Restrict this to one tradeskill; if you want more than one, you still have to exp grind for them.

[splunge]

How does killing 5000 mobs in the Plane of Fire make you better at pottery anyways?

[Melinia]

There is some hope yet..
Many (not all) your hard-core eq players that have every freaking AA, lvl, and gear imaginable will get bored and go onto EQ2 leaving the more casual player a better market to help out other casual players.
I dont know about other servers but I've noticed a drop in MGBs in PoK since EQ2 came out. I dont see how the tradeskill department would be much different.
Depending on your, lvl AAs arent as tough to get as I originally thought. at 56 I was able to join a few friends/guildies in Veksar (located in the lake in LOIO). AAs went up pretty quick. I was able to get 3 AAs in a few short days. Most kritters were dark blue at lvl 56. Regular Exp is decent aswell.

[Zacatac]

How does killing 5000 mobs in the Plane of Fire make you better at pottery anyways?

Or in my case, it would be 10,000 mobs in Greigs End.

Plus, I'd think a smith with that many AAs could charge a nice fee for doing the combine.

Whatever fee they might pay me isn't enough to dedicate months of xp grinding AA's to be a better blacksmith. I'd probably charge 10,000pp per combine.

Let's say 1 AA = 2 hours. 33 = 66 hours. How much is 66 hours of your time worth to you?

[Baldary]

Things change. Either you adapt or you don't. It is your choice. But you don't have to like it.

Baldary

[Silverfish]

Thing to Remember

There's one easy answer to the call that you decribed. I've done this myself a number of times. Someone wants a 250 potter with salvage, and I tell them, "I'm a 250 potter with a trophy but not salvage. Is that sufficient at this time?" Most times, they'll say that it isn't, and I go about my business.

Here's the fun part. Out of the dozen or so times I've done this, about ten times I get a tell, later in the evening, or once as much as three days later.

XYZ tells you, "Are you still available for a pottery combine?"

Go figure. I guess waiting a while while nobody steps up to assist lowers the expectations a bit. After all, that pile of stuff in their hands does nothing for them.

You might try this next time someone asks for "the very best", since frankly, there aren't many of "the very best" around.

Silverfish

[Verdandi]

Things change. Either you adapt or you don't. It is your choice. But you don't have to like it.

That's true, when you don't have a say in what is changing. But we do have a say, so why not use it? I don't expect SOE to be psychic. They won't know we don't like something if we don't say so. Changes are made based on player feedback all the time.

Which is not to say that this board, and particularly this forum, are the place to talk to SOE. Their board and /feedback are the best places for that.

And even if this were all fruitless, this is the Primal Scream room, where even pointless kvetching is welcome. Sometimes a person's just gotta complain.

[gnormy]

My real complaint about addition of the AA's for tradeskilling is that there is no "proof" that player_01 has actually gotten those AA's. Sure, a trophy is pretty good proof of high skill, and the titles are great for proofing 250 skill. But I have to go on blind faith when player_01 claims to have the AA's.

I've mulled this around for quite awhile and heres what i've come up with. The Player with Tradeskill AA's can issue a command that will send a system message to desired player that indicates his exact skill and AA levels.
Example:
Gnormy: /target Fred
Gnormy: /skill pottery
Fred sees: Tradeskiller Gnormy has pottery skill 250, pottery mastery 2, salvage 0.

This system is non-invasive - since the tradeskiller has to be the one to activate the command. Nobody could "snoop" out his skill.

Overall, my experience with Tradeskillers is very positive. However, I've met enough scammers that I'm a permanent skeptic.

[Angelsyn]

Unfortunately, I could see how that could be abused... You could theoretically "spam" someone with pointless messages about your skills (or lack there-of).

Maybe if it was a group-only message it might work.

[KyrosKrane]

Or limit it to one confirmation per minute?

[NerissaGoldenrose]

Or you could set it up the other direction, similar to an inspect -- something like:

(you type) /target Fred
(you type) /skillinspect pottery

(you see) Fred has pottery skill 250, pottery mastery 2, salvage 0

That way you can't spam someone else with your skills, but they're available for anyone who wants to see them. Maybe there ought to be a setting to enable/disable this, like an anon or something, so that you can hide your skills when you aren't wanting to do combines for folks.