Don't skill past 240...no geerlock backlash??

[Moraganth]

So you see those last 70 points WILL either lose you upwards of 300K (or more) or if you do all your farming is costing you perhaps 100 AAXP (if your elemental planes enabled).

Usually its a mix, your going to lose 50AAXP and 150K going for 70 more points that mean nothing in the scheme of actually USING the skill for purpose.

I'd rather have some nice items or a bard horse and 50AAXP. Look at it this way also, if your passing on AAXP for meaningless pride (skilling to 250), it also means your not helping your guild, etc.

So you see stubborn pride is one thing, but getting to 1750 means your probably shortchanging yourself and your guild.

But to each his own! Just some food for thought is all.

Think about it this way... if everyones goal was to ONLY get aa, or ONLY to save plat.. you would be right. My personal goals have never been either. I have a couple hours short of 250 days played on my main, and about 5 minutes of that is "bazaar vendor" time. I'm not into leveling up so i can be bored sitting around for uber_mob_057 to be pulled; i really don't care about the game in that sense.

I'm actually a bit suprised about the thread anyway.. a good many people who reach 250 don't power the last 10 points, they collect them by simply making things. Point 249 tailoring for me the other day was a pair of earthweave pants, which puts my self buffed hp's over 2k (thankyou very much!).

Some people raise their tradeskills for the quests, some so they can have them maxed.... i raised mine so i could actually use them. If i end up with someone giving me a bunch of velium, or more hides, of fish... i'll probably dumped them into some combines for 250... unless the storm leathers my druids have been asking for give me the skillup first.

As for not helping my guild? Have anyone tell me that after i pass out 80-90 bone bracelets of corruption, and i'll have them ported underneath Veeshan. Not all guilds are the same; never try speaking for one you don't know about.

[Cigarskunk]

Re: Don't skill past 240...no geerlock backlash??

Originally posted by Daneric
With 5% geerlock (which are fairly cheap) in every 7 main tradeskills why bother going to 250 in any of them? Usually 241 - 250 is horribly expensive or at the very least, time consuming and why bother other than pride?

Is not a 240 skill with 5% item as good as 250 skill even with 5% item (assuming the 252 cap)?

I don't think too many folks actively skill towards 250 once they've effectively hit 250 with current skill + geerlok - hitting 250 after you've effectively maxed a tradeskill usually happens over the course of doing normal combines after you're effectively maxed.

So I repeat, why bother the extra 10 points? (times 7 skills = a lot of PP and time saved if your shooting for perfection)

So 1750 club? How about the 1680 geerlock club?

To each thier own - remember, there are as many ways to play and "win" at EQ as there are players - take a look at the folks who hit 65 and then proceed to max thier AA points - even taking AA skills that they don't have any real need or desire to possess - for a REAL tradeskiller, being a member of the 1750 club is the ultimate ackomplishment for this game.

The smart player joins the geerlock club.

Since this is an obvious troll, how's about we say, instead, "A lazy player joins the geerlok club?"

So one more question....why wasn't the tradeskill community in a RAGE about skill enhancing items???

Many were pretty hosed at that uber smithing belt, but otherwise, why should we be upset about geerloks and the like?

I mean everyone freaked about some stupid 10 slot sewing kits years ago (and got them nerfed!! bah) and NOTHING on outrage of geerlocks????

Apples and oranges - a small minority of the tailoring community whined that the 10 slot sewing kits were cutting into thier bear skin backpack sales back when those things were one of the few 10 slot containers around.

These people felt that the sewing kits were cutting into thier BP sales and that's why they went ape-shoot about them.

What this has to do with geerloks is a complete mystery to me?

Seems strange to me. All you people who wasted gobs of plat (and worse yet gobs of time) getting from 241 to 250 coulda had the same results with a $1.50 trinket.....isn't anyone livid???

Well, you obviously haven't made it that high in your tradeskills yet, so it's easy to see how you don't understand.

None of us consider the plat we spent getting to 250 to be wasted - we went to 250 because we WANTED to.

You see, those of us who strive for 250 in a skill and eventual membership in the 1750 club do tradeskills because we enjoy doing them - not because we have to do them.

Tradeskills are like religion - for those who understand, no explanation is needed; for those who don't, none can be provided.

Oh well! Glad I don't have to endure the post 240 pain.

Daneric

No one HAS to endure past 242 - we do so because we WANT to.

[Ndaara]

I chose to work Baking to 250 because i was enjoying it. However, my goal for the rest of my skills is indeed 242. As soon as i got there the next time I stopped actively working on the skill and just make stuff as i want or need it. The points still come though. I don't care about getting 250 in another skill on that character.

I chose smithing ages ago and this will turn into a rant if i start in on that. My goal for smithing is 242 because it's just too much WORK to raise the skill. I was smithing just to restock my bazaar vendor until the Ornate market killed my smithing market. Now I'm smithing for skill again and not enjoying it nearly as much.

If my guild only valued me for my levels and AA's i would leave that guild immediately. I play this game for many reasons, the least of which is XP grinding which i find completely unfun. I hunt for fun, to be with friends, or for drops which get turned into tradeskill fodder.

The greatest thing about EQ is the multifarious activities. There's something for everyone! Please don't try to tell anyone else how to have fun.

[Kahmon]

Originally posted by Ndaara
The greatest thing about EQ is the multifarious activities. There's something for everyone! Please don't try to tell anyone else how to have fun.

I don't think anything can sum it up better then that

[Sanna]

Any time anyone asks me about how to get into tradeskilling, the first thing I ask back is 'do you want the skill, or the plat from making things?'

Slightly over half have said, 'plat, duh, i want to buy the things I need.' I tell them to go pharm plat, and come back to tradeskills when they understand more about them.

One very smart person said, 'That's why I came to you. They all say you know.' So I told him. It's hours of farming, not xping. It's a bank so crowded you bought Loy for that reason alone, and refused to play the Sunday before it patched because lack of space would have made you cry. It's about always carrying a bit of plat on you (a dangerous thing to do on Sullon; get killed by an even and lose it) so you can vendormine anyone you see. It's about carrying this inanely obscenely long list of 'I might need that someday' around in your head for when you are vendormining or looting from your xp kills. It's about educating yourself about your home market so you don't make costly errors.


It's about patience.
It's about frustration.
It's about spending plat to increase your stats so you save plat on getting skillups.
It's about reading charts and tables for those skillups.
(It's about getting a job so you can donate money to EQTC to help pay for all the bandwidth you've sucked... I need a job, /sigh.)
It's about your personal constitution. You do it because you want to. No other reason. You don't even have to explain it to yourself, just as long as you know that you are doing it for a not-wrong reason. ^_^

Once you know you are not fooling yourself, then it becomes about the joy of getting skillups. THAT is what tradeskilling is about. Vicariously, we are learning something productive, gaining a useful skill so we can make things and fight atrophy and chaos. Help bring order and constitution to a world that spawns decaying skeletons who laugh and carry money... somewhere... on their ex-person.

It's about pushing the combine button, just to see what will happen.


And frankly, I'm getting the creepy vibe that dinging Baking 250 is going to be very depressing. The only sad thing about being on top is that there is no more up to go.

-- Sanna
getting metaphysical or something.... Fighting chaos? Where did that come from?

[Crystara]

Some people turn to tradeskills when they run out of other stuff to do as well, me being one of those people. I don't particularily enjoy them, but I have nothing else useful to do with my time outside raiding aside from working on a guild coh mage which frankly isn't very fun. And now that I am almost finished with them, have a 65 twink that can't get any better droppable gear, and a coh mage that's almost done as well, I have no idea what I will do with my time.

[Ndaara]

Crystara.... there's a big blue room outside your front door

If you'd like help figuring out what to do out there, just holler!

[Littlun]

Tradeskills =! efficiency

Those who do tradeskills past the basic levels, and those who know enough of the game to understand the tradeoff between time and plat, don't do it for efficiency. They do it for pride.

In the "good ole days" it was possible to be different. 250 tradeskillers were so rare that they quickly became the richest around. I remember my bank account hitting 7 digits when my friends, who had a couple more levels and a bit more nodrop armour couldn't imagine paying 10k for something.

That said, I did it for pride. At 220 or so I could make pretty much anything I wanted. If I wanted to buy something ubah I'd just take a couple of days gathering stuff and selling and it was mine, including my fungi/T-staff monk twink with (obviously) full BP(hmmm.... Is this now the level 10 newbie norm?) among several 2nd account characters. But when I started Littlun my goal was to be a 250 tailor because it was the toughest thing to do in the entire game. Not 240+geerlok (that didn't exist), but 250. The 1750 club is the same. It means that you have not only reached high level but have also put in the "work" (and have the RSI to prove it), and that you are a tradeskiller extraordinaire.

Thanx,

Littlun.

[Littlun]

Multiple GMs

I won't really address the issue of what tradeskillers thought when geerloks were added, but what about 2 other innovations?

When trophies were introduced I think that tradeskillers (especially enchanters) were ecstatic. There was finally a way to
"prove" that you were a high level tradeskiller. I received commissions from a few people who had been duped by people who claimed to be 150, 175, 200, 225, etc offering free combines for skillups. But without word of mouth (which served me well) there was no way to prove it. But having a trophy was a great way. Because it was so expensive to even attempt, let alone succeed, this became a way of "proving" high skill. Enchanters (and druids ) loved them because of the stats!

Being allowed to have multiple skills over 200 was HUGE. This goes to the heart of your question, I think. It's rarely NECESSARY to have this, but is a great goal and matter of pride amongst tradeskillers. Needing to be 60+ was a bit controversial but the principle was definitely that you could be a tradeskiller and be PROUD!

Thanx,

Littlun.

[Britneyy]

Thats like doing 90% work compared to 100% since it would effectivly be the `same` result of an `A`