New Tradeskill UI on Test

[Gwideon]

Gnomish Greetings!

Sorry, but making a bunch of clicks and dragging items from one container to the other is not "active involvement". The active involvement part should be about getting the ingredients, not the mouse work involved in skilling up. If you think it's too easy to buy 10 packs worth of items and hit the mouse button several hundred times then the problem is with the components being to easily obtained, not the ease of doing combines.

I think what makes my sense of accomplishment the greatest is the relative rarity of the skill levels. If you give everyone the ability to attempt any combine with a single click, then any recipie that can be bought fully in the bazaar or on vendors will trivialize the skill up process to the point where it will be uncommon not to have high tradeskills.

I think the interface is a good idea because it will help reduce wrist pain, and take some of the advantages away from macroers. There should be a skill cap on what you can attempt with a single click, otherwise it just becomes another sense heading type of skill.

[Mumboh]

Serenya has the right of it. The only reason to play this game is to have fun. Too much of the game has become unfun -- camping lucid shards, planar backflagging, yadayadayada. Tradeskills have been very much like that.

Sony is changing that for tradeskills, and I think that's a good thing (not that I think the new UI is going to be fun, per se, but it I have reason to hope it will be far less unfun than all the clicking).

I have some quibbles about the "dumbing down" of EQ, but the new UI isn't one of them. Even if it comes out in its current form, it is nothing but a good thing that should only get better. Kudos to Sony.

[Utope Eljugador]

Most people (which I'm suprised by) seem to be forgetting that you can 250 any tradeskill (other than smithing and tailoring) in a matter of days. Recently (due to the upcoming changes) I GM'd all but smithing and tailoring. It took me 4 weeks from when I first GM'd brewing to get everything but smithing and tailoring to 250. Thats with managing to get 18aas, raise 150k, and gather tons of supplies (I've got like 16 bags of small pieces of velium, 0 bought).

Most people here readily admit that the only two tradeskills that take any significant time to GM are tailoring and smithing. That's due to the fact that the components to GM them are farmed and annoying or expensive to come by.

So whats the problem? You cant click a UI to do a combine if you dont have the components to do so can you?

I think the biggest benefit to this new UI is doing subcombines, like CEs which I absolutely refuse to pay more than 5pp for in the bazaar. And even thats pushing it.

And I forget who mentioned it now, but they had it right. You cant focus on the cheaters, they'll always be there, no matter what. People are lazy and will find a way to get around the system. Focus on what you want to do not what you dont want someone else to do.

81+55 to go.

[Wandor]

This is a great start. Like a few others, I would make a couple of simple changes ...

1. I like the idea of recipe books. There should be a couple of ways to learn new recipes - buy a book from a vendor and try a combine yourself. I do think that you should have to succeed a combine before being added to your book.

2. Make any delay between combines minimal. Anyone who has done extensive trade skill work probably has a system down and knows how to set up multiple containers for fast combines. When I did brewing I could easily do a Mino brew combine in less than 3 seconds.

Overall, a very nice change. I am not concerned with people having it easier than I did, maybe this will encourage more people to try trades.

[Brenlo]

An update for you.

Here is some information from Tanker, the programmer working on this new UI for you all to read and comment on:

First off, thanks for all the positive and constructive responses. It's nice to see something you do will be appreciated when it goes live, and it's good to hear we got it mostly right.

There are a couple of misconceptions that I see running though these posts that I'd like to clear up, so any further dialogue can be made with a more correct basic understanding of the new UI.

1. There are two new "flags" on each recipe in the database:
- Whether the recipe can be used in the new interface, ever. ( I call this "canLearn" ).
- Whether the player will automatically gain this recipe in his "book" when he gets close enough in skill to the trivial ( I call this "autoLearn" ).
Each of these flags has to be set "by hand" (sometimes by script) by a designer, and that is still in process. Obviously you guys will have some feedback to give when a recipe isn't flagged the way you think it should, but I think it'll get more attention if you wait a bit before going through the complete recipe list to argue each one.

2. Recipes can be learned. The ones that show in your recipe search list at first are autoLearn only, and only those with trivials up to 50 points above your current skill level. Successful completion of a canLearn recipe in the old interface ("Experiment") will add that recipe to the list of recipes you can search for, regardless of its trivial value. Unfortunately, this was commented out when the UI was first put on Test, but will be fixed next patch.

3. The reason we have the canLearn flag is to be able to keep some combines out of this interface. Mainly these will be quest recipes and recipes that people hardly ever do "stacks" of at a time. A designer would have more to say on this.

4. Duplicate recipe names exist (Celestial Essence, etc.), but will be changed to be unique sometime before this goes Live.

I hope this gives you all a better understanding of what the system will do (and won't). Please continue with the constructive feedback.

Tanker

[eniamn]

serverside or client side can learn switch? server side might cause probs for you guys but client side will get hacked and loaded on net i would think.

otherwise. (woot smiley is good here too.)

[Oualawouzou]

That's some nice news, Brenlo/Tanker. Thanks!

[Serenya]

Re: An update for you.

Originally posted by Brenlo

1. There are two new "flags" on each recipe in the database:
- Whether the recipe can be used in the new interface, ever. ( I call this "canLearn" ).
- Whether the player will automatically gain this recipe in his "book" when he gets close enough in skill to the trivial ( I call this "autoLearn" ).

2. Recipes can be learned. The ones that show in your recipe search list at first are autoLearn only, and only those with trivials up to 50 points above your current skill level. Successful completion of a canLearn recipe in the old interface ("Experiment") will add that recipe to the list of recipes you can search for, regardless of its trivial value.

3. The reason we have the canLearn flag is to be able to keep some combines out of this interface. Mainly these will be quest recipes and recipes that people hardly ever do "stacks" of at a time. A designer would have more to say on this


Tanker

I really like the sounds of this. It meets the concerns of those who hate the idea of being able to 'see' items not yet trivial, while rewarding those who make the effort to make the item anyway, thus meeting my concern that it is silly to penalize someone just because they want to try an 'over their head' combine. (Again, think of the tinkers!) And at the same time, it allows the flexibility of keeping out of the 'default' book undiscovered recipes whilst still permitting them to show up once found and made. /happy dance

thanks for the responses and for the great work being done on this!

[Ruldar]

Does this interface appear for portable tradeskill containers also? If so, what happens to items currently in a container, like a Deluxe Toolkit for example. I think a lot of people have those as bank backpacks, would be a shame to accidently delete everything in everyones tradeskill containers when the patch for this goes live.

[eqNichola]

My thoughts:

- Buying an in-game recipe book (remember these? "Xetica's Hot Pies" (or whatever) and the like? the ones that 'give a boost to skillups if you have them open'? /giggle) should automatically put all recipes in that book into your recipe list ('learn' them, as people will undoubtedly start saying). Those that have canLearn set, at least; although I would say all recipes found in books should be canLearn = true

- As I explained at length in an email to Absor shortly before his job change (I hope he passed on his mailbox to you Brenlo cos it was a really long email and I probably don't have a copy), the way to defeat plat macroers is NOT by making combines slower, or harder, it's by making sure there aren't any economy leaks there in the first place. Given a copy of the master combine database and a copy of the master NPC vendor value database, it should be an easy task to establish whether or not there is an economy leak. Have a junior programmer make a utility that checks this. Run said utility every time either database is changed. End of problem.

- You say that successful experimentation of a canLearn recipe will cause it to be learned. However, you might as well make it that *any result* experimentation of a canLearn recipe learns it. Why? Because even if you're trying to stop (eg) skill 0 brewers immediately learning Minotaur Hero Brew, it won't work - within 50 tries they'll succeed at least once, probably, then your scheme has failed. So might as well say any result experiment learns it.

- Personally, I would say that being able to do a stack of combines at once would not be a great priority, given that with this system a single combine takes only one click.

- At the moment, what happens when you succeed? Item on cursor? Would be nice to have an option to make it /autoi.. um... automatically

In general I've gotta say this looks great, and I've been holding off skilling my last few points since I first heard this was in the works. Speaking only for myself, I do tradeskills to MAKE STUFF and anything that makes that less of a hassle is good!

[Mystarian]

This is just a great addition. I am looking forward to the release of this to the general population.

As far as Macroing... If they want to macro they will do it, because they are already doing it. I have heard of people just setting up a macro and going afk while combines stacks of items. All this does is take away the advantage of macroing over the non-macroing tradeskiller.

I am all for it. Especially the "Experiment" idea.

Inyx D'Ater
250 Smith
220~ Brewer
190~ Potter
150+ Tailor, Fletcher

[Yaldin]

my 2cp

This is a GREAT advancement - I personally don't consider being able to put thousands of combines (and sub combines) into a container and hitting combine a task worthy of reward - it's painful and hard.

Having done aid grimel and all TS's to 220+ (with no 250's yet) I can safely say that ANYTHING that reduced the subcombines needed is fantastic, I also agree that macro'ers will always do what they do and the only way to stop them is to remove the leaks they profit from, no profit = no macro'ers. Solve the problem, not the side effect of the problem if you will.

The new interface is a godsend and I personally feel that the "no recipes that aren't trivial" would be pointless as most of the combines worth doing at this stage of the game will never ever be trivial. That would defeat the purpose of the new interface which imo is to decrease the chore level in tradeskilling and be a first step to revitalizing it.

Buying the TS books? Would be an exercise in utility, someone would sell them in the bazaar and it would just be another exercise in patience.

I don't know how to remedy the "dumbing down" in that this interface might clarify recipes we have not been able to solve - but I know I would rather have these recipes dumbed down on the alter of sacrifice to make clicking combine that much easier.

Brewing is already trivial, this just makes the combining factor easier. The hard part for most skills like smithing or tailoring (or pottery for me) is to get the materials together in the first place - the endless sub combines doesn't contribute to the fun factor for me - it makes an already difficult job that much more difficult.

Skilling up for most skills won't be any more trivial than it already is.

A thought I had - just list the recipe names in the UI interface BUT do not list the components needed - if you have the components it will let you combine, if not, it won't.

[Marteeny]

Originally posted by EQScott
As it stands now, tradeskilling is mostly torture. Admit it.

Tradeskilling should be about collecting the components necessary, not about having to click your mouse a thousand times.

I disagree. If it really was torture, why would so many do it? I can agree that constant clicking isn't the best way and that having to collect components would be better. The problem being that other than tailoring, every skill can be pretty much vendor bought with enough pp. There is no need to collect components for the other tradeskills, so your point is moot.

3. What this interface will do is give the average Joe a decent way to master tradeskilling without being the psycho diehards that we all are.

I don't want to be an average Joe. It makes me feel good when friends and guildies ask me to help them make something. That is one of the reasons I work hard on my skills.

Having the attitude of, "I went through it, so should everyone else" is so WRONG, I don't even know where to begin. You want to use it to make items that YOU can sell for profit, but somehow using it to skillup is wrong? How very selfish of you. The interface isn't designed to help the GM tradeskillers make money easier, it's to make tradeskills more enjoyable for everyone.

Man.... the selfishness by some of the people in this thread just astounded me.

I have only partially gone through the GMing of tradeskills. I only have 2 skills over 200, so I have a long way to go. It's not just that I don't want it to be easy for others, I also don't want it to be easy for me. You say it will make it enjoyable, I say it will make it too easy, which in turn might take the fun out of it.

The jist of it is that I don't want it to be easier. Not so I can rake in a billion pp, but so that I have a sense of accomplishment when I finish. They gave us tradeskill trophies because it is an accomplishment to get there. Might as well make a sense heading trophy, because that's about how hard brewing will be.

If you want to say I am selfish for wanting it to remain hard to do tradeskills, then I will say you are selfish for wanting to take that challenge away. You should really look at both sides before calling people names.

[Serenya]

Originally posted by Marteeny


If you want to say I am selfish for wanting it to remain hard to do tradeskills, then I will say you are selfish for wanting to take that challenge away. You should really look at both sides before calling people names.

You can still use the 'old way' if you really want to. Honestly, I don't find the click and drag method gives me more of a sense of accomplishment then clicking on a recipe. Manual dexterity doesn't feel like an enjoyable challenge to me (And I tradeskilled in DaoC, which uses a very similar, albeit less flexible, system.) We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

Honestly, though, I think this change is only partially driven by a desire to please current tradeskillers. It was mostly put in to encourage ‘on the fence’ folk to tradeskill. Sony considers tradeskills to be a plat sink that people want to do, and anything that will encourage it is a Good Thing in their book. In my opinion of course.

[Marteeny]

Originally posted by Serenya
You can still use the 'old way' if you really want to.

That's just silly though. That would be like still hitting sense heading a couple hundred times per level even though it starts at 200.

Honestly, I don't find the click and drag method gives me more of a sense of accomplishment then clicking on a recipe. Manual dexterity doesn't feel like an enjoyable challenge to me

Don't get me wrong, I agree with this 100%. I just don't think taking the only hard part out of tradeskills (sans tailoring) was the way to go with it. I am not saying that I have the answer that will make tradeskills stay fun and still be a challenge, but I also don't think what they are doing is going to accomplish this either.

I haven't used the new interface so I can only speculate, but I don't think I am going to like the long term effects of this.