New Tradeskill UI on Test

[Razj]

Originally posted by Jenkin Flintfoot
Having GM'd Baking with a trophy, I don't think of the path I traveled to get here was the reward.

I look at the 2500 pp I made in 30 mins in the bazaar after a run of 60 Grobb Liquidized Meat combines as the reward.
-Jenkin Flintfoot
-53 Druid, Test

Right, you do get that you'll no longer be getting that 2500pp? Because it's the time and effort it takes to make the mouseclicks (since ingredients are readily bazaar-available) that prevents the market from being flooded by tradeskillers....take away the effort and you take away the rarity of the products. Take away the rarity of the products and you take away the premium prices. Now you have neither the path nor the platinum at the end. What's the reward now?

- Razj

[eniamn]

well i just got enough gear to get my int to 245 last night without a primary or secondary equipped. the legs, hands, shield, face i have are either straight purchases from picnics or from tradeskill knowledge. the picnics may be more common for a bit until people realize they still hate the subcombines. takes 3 hours to do my runs atm. might cut that down to 2 hours at best with the new ui. picnics might be 7pp instead of 10 or might even go down to 5. they might crash for a bit but they get eaten so they go away and it will prolly go back to around 10pp.

i'm in this because i like to make stuff. picnics fail too much for my liking but they are the money maker and i feed my entire guild with them for the most part and still get plat. have done 2 runs in 2 weeks and none for at least a month before that. only had 5 stacks to give away and that was to new people in the guild. my guild is fed. i made something useful. i can go make most non-gm things for myself quickly. this is why i tradeskill.

[Angahran]

a trip to the Bazaar on a Saturday, 1 hour of clicking while watching the game and WHAM, GM in a tradeskill

ROFL!!
Given unlimited PP anyone can GM any of the buyable tradeskills (e.g. jewlsmithing) very quickly, with or without the new UI.

But, there is no way on earth anyone is going to GM any of the difficult trades, Tailoring, for example, in 1 hour. No matter how much PP they have and no matter how good the UI is.

Sorry, but this simply looks like a case of, 'I had to walk 100 miles to school, in the snow, without shoes, up hill both ways, so everyone else has to as well'.

A new UI is not going to make those people who are not interested in trades suddenly decide to try them. The most it will do is maybe get those who were considering it to have a go. And considering there are very few items where you can actually make any form of profit a lot of people won't make it to the higher levels.

Ang.

[Zeralenn]

I just got finished trying out the new UI, and I was saying to folks in channel (my test character is Richeldia) that I felt that probably there would be people who would decry it as the great "dumbing down" of tradeskills. And here I am proven right.

It doesn't matter what great new thing Sony introduces for EQ; people will find SOME way to bitch about it.

Most of the arguments seem to boil down to what I call the old "walked ten miles uphill in the snow both ways to school every day and LIKED it" argument. People say and have said that about all kinds of things, including the PoK books. Personally, I never found spending 20 minutes running across West Karana much more entertaining than I find it entertaining to shovel items into a tradeskill container, put away the results, rinse, repeat, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. Why I like tradeskills as much as I do is not something I truly comprehend.

I have another reason to love the new UI: I have arthritis in my hands. I have had a form of non-degenerative heritable arthritis in my hands since I was 15 years old. I gave up writing much longhand other than my signature in college (I had to take essay tests in my professor's offices on a typewriter). Typing does not bother me much because the arthritis is mostly in the thumb joint, though also somewhat less around the knuckles. However, mousing and a lot of clicking can be very painful if my arthritis is acting up. I haven't been doing much tradeskilling this winter because of the cold; my office is pretty drafty.

So, I am truly thrilled about the ability to combine and autoinventory without all that dragging and clicking required. It's a great thing and I am going to buy the GoD expansion because of it.


I agree that I do not believe it will make a tradeskiller out of a non-tradeskiller. People didn't avoid tradeskills because of the tedium of dragging and clicking as much as they avoided it due to the expense and frustration. People still have to buy and farm ingredients, still have to know in advance what they are buying, and what they are making, and what's the most efficient way to skill up. Those things aren't changing. You get some more guidance for recipes (early on anyway; I noticed that not all recipes are there, and that may get even more so later on) and it's a new, less painful way to click. But, the rest remains true. And that will help ensure that only the truly insane will continue pursuing tradeskills with dedication.

If you want to become an insta-GM, you can do that now with the old UI. You don't need the new UI. I made my chanter a 250 JCer at 250. I talked one of my guildies recently to 250 brewing (he didn't want tradeskills -- he just wanted the trophy). All without the new UI. While there may be a few more JCers and brewers out there, I sincerely doubt this will change the number of GM tailors, tinkers, and smiths out there.

...Zera

[Argantes]

Regardless of your position on this matter, take a moment to think about this from the Sony's perspective. What does Sony want? They want people to buy the game, become a subscriber, and stay a subscriber. Any changes to the game are first and foremost designed to accomplish this.

How does this new UI accomplish this? It makes doing trade skills easier by taking away the tedium of clicking. This is meant to encourage people who would not normally do trade skills to spend more time in the game. If you have already spent a lot of time on trade skills, Sony is not likely to make a new UI for you. They are more likely to add more recipes, especially recipes with rare, dropped components from high end encounters... like adding a new 50+ continent, for example.

The majority of players seem to prefer fighting monsters to pursuing trade skills. So, loot from monsters will likely remain better than loot from trade skills; this is what the majority of people want to do... kill things and take their loot. So to keep a larger number of subscribers, Sony will keep that as is.

Will an influx of more people with higher level trade skills affect the player economy? Certainly. Does Sony care? Probably very little. Most people don't care about trade skills and many that do only care for them in as much as they can profit from them. Sony isn't interested in your profits. They are interested in their profits. And to get those, they just want more people to play more of the game longer. The new UI accomplishes that. If it has other consequences, expect those to be addressed only in as much as it affects the number of players. To keep existing trade skill fans happy, expect (and ask for) more high end recipes with dropped components that are roughly as hard to get as loot with similar stats.


Argantes
51 Human Necromancer
Ronin Caste Officer
Lanys T'vyl

[cannyar]

the bad..?

i'm just curious.. every time sony seems to give us something nice they also drop the other shoe (or is it a bomb).

yes the new UI will make one-click-wonder-bread. but where is the balance to this? is it possible it will be harder to skill up? will trivials go up higher? i find it hard to believe they're going to make trade skills so much easier without taking something away.

i haven't decided if i like the new interface or not. there are pros and cons to everything. yes it will make GM'ing a skill less of a "feat." but not having to make sure all my bags are arranged correctly on the screen to do all the combines for a MTP is a good thing, i think. in any case, it's coming and like everything else the EQ community will deal with it..

[Nepper]

I don't expect the other shoe to drop in this case.
I think the best point (raised by someone else already) is that with EQ2 around the corner, and tradeskillers beeing a playable class necessary for the game, they want to raise the desireability of tradeskilling. Hook 'em a little in EQ1, and that many more people will be interested in EQ2.
That's not to say that it doesn't have benefits in EQ1. I'm one of the few (so it seems) who is actually looking quite forward to this release. Just my 2cp.

[borblefoot furtoe]

For all of you who don't think this new UI has the potential to negatively affect you and your tradeskilling. Take note of all off the posts here that go somewhat along the lines of one of the following.

The new UI is great. I can hardly wait for it to go live. I will finally be able to GM Tradeskill/s_01.

This new UI is so going to make my tradeskilling so much easier.

I have put off gming tradeskilll/s_01 but with this new UI it will be time for me to finish them.

And serveral other variants all along that line.

All these people skilling up will mean You are going to see a rather large spike in raw materials costs.
You will see an even greater increase in competition for farming spots as more people tradeskilling means more people farming. That in conjuction with the spike in materials costs will drive some that normally wouldn't to start farming their own.

Once skilled up you will also see a coresponding drop in prices on finished goods that for the most part already have a very narrow if any profit margin.

Additionally It is possible you will see the dissapearance of the market for some of the subcombine pieces for various recipies as they will no longer be as tedious to combine. Now this may or may not come to pass there are many factors which will go in to determining whether or not the market for these items will exist. But it is a possible outcome and should not be lightly dismissed.


Now it is my understanding that there is a delay in reuse time of the new UI. Depending on how large it is it can possibly act as at least a partial replacement to the rather larger barrier to entry that they will be removing with this new UI.



Regardless of whether or not the worst fears are realized the new UI is going to mean change. It is going to mean increased competition. How much and the exact impact it will have remain yet to be seen. But those of you who think there are no downsides whatsoever are deluding yourselves.

Borblefoot Furtoe
Storm warden
Resolution
Firiona Vie Server

[Fenril Lonewolf]

The new UI is not a miracle who will make everyone a GM.

It will only remove the need to click and click endless time and to check the recipes you use once in a blue moon.

You'll still need the components.

What used acrylia, will still use acrylia.

MTP and HMP will still need a crapload of sub-combines.
PoP recipes will still need these **** too rare compos.
Tailoring and smithing will still need a tons of silks, velium, acrylia, blue diamonds or what you want.

The guy who hasn't some kpp in his bank, won't be able to buy all the components he need, the new UI won't change this.

You won't be able to combine 2 stacks of spider silks to built 1 stack of silk swatches. You'll still have to combine them one after one.

The need of 60 stacks of celestials essence for a Mistletoe Cutting Sickle run will still be there.

The people who say :"I'm waiting the new UI to raise my TS" will be pretty disapointed . Instead of clicking endless time, they'll have to wait 2 or 3 secs between each combine.
It will be less painfull for the wrist, but still boring as hell to raise JC and Brewing .

I can see easily (sp?) a ton of ppl starting or re-starting TS, but only a little part will be these new "easy" GMs.

As for the prices in the bazaar, sure, they will goes insanely up, but 500pp a superb rockhopper hide or 30k a single obsidianwood sap is already 10 times too much, the prices are ALREADY way too high .

Just my 2cp

[cannyar]

Originally posted by Fenril Lonewolf
It will only remove the need to click and click endless time

hmm. how many clicks will it take to make a mtp? i'm guessing far less than it does now. 1 click per sub-combine, a few clicks for the mtp. how many does it take now? far more.

You'll still need the components.

What used acrylia, will still use acrylia.

true.

MTP and HMP will still need a crapload of sub-combines.
PoP recipes will still need these **** too rare compos.
Tailoring and smithing will still need a tons of silks, velium, acrylia, blue diamonds or what you want.

but 1-click sub-combines takes away quite a few clicks out of the total recipie.

The guy who hasn't some kpp in his bank, won't be able to buy all the components he need, the new UI won't change this.

no, but the 65 uber player with 1Mpp in the bank will GM a tradeskill (baking/brewing/jc) in a matter of hours vs. weeks or longer.

You won't be able to combine 2 stacks of spider silks to built 1 stack of silk swatches. You'll still have to combine them one after one.

yes, but with how many clicks? 80 (1 click for each silk, 1 click for combine, 1 click to drag it to your pack) vs. 40 (1 click to combine and one to drag to pack)? that's a 1/2 the clicks and i don't know how much time. i don't know about everyone else but i can't click-drag-click items instantly and frequently i miss those little holes in the bag/container. grrr.

The need of 60 stacks of celestials essence for a Mistletoe Cutting Sickle run will still be there.

no one ever said the new UI would change recipies.

The people who say :"I'm waiting the new UI to raise my TS" will be pretty disapointed . Instead of clicking endless time, they'll have to wait 2 or 3 secs between each combine.
It will be less painfull for the wrist, but still boring as hell to raise JC and Brewing .

so what's 2-3 seconds with a single click vs. longer with having to do multiple click-drag-clicks? personally i'd rather wait 2-3 seconds of mindless clicking while watching tv than having to watch the screen and drag each component into the container and click combine. making sure i'm holding control to get a single item. diving through bags to find more stacks of something. no matter how you spin it the new UI is going to save time and make it convienient for everyone, else, why would SOE bother to create it to begin with?

I can see easily (sp?) a ton of ppl starting or re-starting TS, but only a little part will be these new "easy" GMs.

i think you'll be surprised at how many new gms we find. i have several guildies who say they will master the "easy" skills once the new ui is in place if nothing else than for a trophy.

As for the prices in the bazaar, sure, they will goes insanely up, but 500pp a superb rockhopper hide or 30k a single obsidianwood sap is already 10 times too much, the prices are ALREADY way too high .

define too high. i always figured prices were whatever someone is willing to pay. if you don't want to pay 500pp for a hide then don't buy it, there is undoubtly someone else who will, and someone who will price theirs at 499 just to get it to move first.

Just my 2cp

here's my 2cp too. is someone starting a jar?

[ColdHeart]

Ok, people who will GM a tradeskill just for the trophy, bit whoop. Sure they may upset the initial market, but what about the 250 end final products, the ones people make to sell? Just because someone GMs a skill does not mean they will farm the bazaar/zones for the drops to make that Tae Ew Tunic, the Hurricane Armour, the Kaladim's, the Hero Sandwiches for selling in the bazaar.

Sure, it will mean more competition as people who would have done end up doing it. But then what will happen? People start undercutting, profir margins begin to drop, the ones who just started realise the fortunes they were going to make are gone and eventually people stop making more.... eventually the market will recover. Maybe prices will be less on the whole perhaps, but in the long run the Tradeskill market will be there.

There are plenty of other things affecting the market than the UI, look at LDoN drops :-/

[Fenril Lonewolf]

no, but the 65 uber player with 1Mpp in the bank will GM a tradeskill (baking/brewing/jc) in a matter of hours vs. weeks or longer

The easy skills are already a matter of hours to GM.

JC, Brewing, Baking and Fletching, you can GM any of these in one day NOW.

Just Fletching who will cost you a crapload of pp .

I don't know for your server, but on Karana, there is so many JCer, brewer or baker that these markets are already flawed except for really high end elemental combines.

And what preserve these combines is not only the flags needed, but the incredibly poor drop rate. Having 20 or 1000 jewelcrafters on your server won't change the fact that only 5 eyes of eternal fire dropped in the whole week .

As I said, these TS are already flawed with all the current GM.


For all the others TS, I'm pretty impatient to see the results in the bazaar .

The guy who has multiple mio pp in bank will have to compete with ALL THE OTHERS guys who have multiple mio pp .

The avaibility of raw material won't change but the number of customer will increase, no doubt.
This will result in a price increase and an lesser offer of raw material.

Have you checked the velium prices and avaibility when the Enchanter Velium Ring was revealed ???

Suddenly, velium prices goes really high, but most of the time, no or only a few velium for sale in the bazaar.

So, at the end, the guy who has millions of pp won't be a GM smith or tailoring in one week.

/add 2 more cp to the pot

[Razj]

Originally posted by Fenril Lonewolf
The guy who has multiple mio pp in bank will have to compete with ALL THE OTHERS guys who have multiple mio pp .

Already established that you don't, in fact, need millions of pp...

Originally posted by Fenril Lonewolf Have you checked the velium prices and avaibility when the Enchanter Velium Ring was revealed ???

Suddenly, velium prices goes really high, but most of the time, no or only a few velium for sale in the bazaar.

So, at the end, the guy who has millions of pp won't be a GM smith or tailoring in one week.

/add 2 more cp to the pot

Just for you, I checked. Emarr, 1pm PST on Wednesday. Well over 1000 small pieces. Plenty of hides for tailoring. To be fair, the biggest sticking point I'm seeing in the bazaar route is the oils and tannins...the goodies that need fishing and foraging. No help in the UI there.

It can be done. The people with the most interest, I think, will be those gunning for the Signet of Might. So...how much do you think most of those Plane-hopping characters needing this as an upgrade have sitting in the bank? Well, given that we need things like the casino to bleed money out of the system, I'm guessing quite a bit.

Yes, it's not the end of the world. But more people *will* be entering the TS arena and they will be doing it because it's easier than ever, there's a fantastic impetus (that's one heck of an earring!) to do it, and they've the money to burn. End result = TS more common than ever, values lower than ever (especially as the Ubers dump stuff and ridiculous prices) and the top end becomes more powerful.

But then again, I'm just whining since I'm disagreeing, right?

You know, change isn't always good. This change may be as bad as some suggest or as wonderful as others suggest. But assuming that it's automatically a boon because its change and that anyone who doesn't instantly love the idea is a crybaby...well, maybe there's a mistake in there somewhere.

- Razj

[Argantes]

Some more things to think about;

It seems everyone here agrees that the click-and-drag model of today is more time consuming and tedious than the new UI. Thus,
the new UI seems to be designed to encourage people to take up trade skills.

If more people are doing trade skills, then we can definitely reach some simple conclusions. In the short term, prices on trade skill supplies are likely to go up. Players will buy up available supplies of velium or hides or acrylia as they use the new UI to skill up. Perhaps now would be a good time to stockpile supplies... either for resale at a tidy profit or for your own use when you cannot buy them. Of course, this has always been true.

If a particular trade skill can be raised simply by buying materials from merchants, it seems likely that the new UI will allow people with enough cash an easier route. Of course, why would they want to take it? There must be something at the end of the journey worth having... most people who enjoyed trade skills were already working on it, new UI or not. This causes us to ask the central question;

Which skills have high end rewards worth the time it takes to get there?

Tailoring does, but the new UI will not help because the skill is resource bound. Smithing does, but reaching levels beyond a fairly high point is limited by materials like tailoring. Pottery does, but isn't limited by farming as much as it is limited by imbuing and enchanting. These skills are easily available to high level, wealthy characters. Baking is similar to Smithing, although the eventual rewards are not as good. Brewing, Fletching, and Jewelcraft are relatively simple to power through... but only the latter two have rewards that are worth it and the rewards of fletching are often drop limited.

So, even with a reduction in the real cost of the getting high level trade skills, the profit seems limited for anything you could do with the new UI. Perhaps Jewelcrafting and Brewing will become even more common, but there are not likely to be any more tailors or bakers and few extra smiths or fletchers... the rewards are just not there compared to farming drops or platinum in power zones... which is what the players are doing now who might consider using the new UI.


Argantes
51 Human Necromancer
Ronin Caste Officer
Lanys T'vyl

[Renjah]

Its safe to say brewing, baking and JC will all take a hit. JC prob the lesser of the 3 since it also requires JCM3 to really make anything good at a consistant rate.

Baking and Brewing can be taken to 250ish on store bought items. Not that either really has a BIG money market anyway. Most people simply want a larger faster return on trade skills. I would say overall prices will be out of whack for a month tops then it will even out.

While I was very fearful of the UI at first I don't think it will have a large scale effect. You still have to go out and get the items to master a trade skill. The excess clicking thats removed is actually the easy part. I'm not happy the new UI allows non-trivial combines to be automated, but anyone who would abuse such a system probably has access to a macro program anyway. I think after an adjustment period it will have about the same impact on trade skills that SHIFT clicking to buy a stack of items did (or CTRL clicking to get 1 item off a stack).