New Tradeskill UI on Test

[Kilauea Bacchus]

I for one am extremely happy about this new UI. I have CTS, and my main tradeskiller has 250 in baking, 184 in brewing, and other tradeskills in various stages of the 100s. Halas pies were a pain both figuratively and literally. I am looking forward to getting the 1750 with less pain (once I get her AAs, of course ). I might even start making halas pies again

I think the people who are complaining about how many clicks it took to make things, and how tradeskill trophys should be made worse now that this new UI is here should just be quiet. Why should a player be punished just because they started playing the game last month, instead of four years ago? It's true there will be a percentage of people who were not interested in tradeskills before who will start doing them now because of the "simplicity" of this new UI, but they'll still have to go out and gather materials. I don't think everyone is going to suddenly GM every tradeskill just because of the UI. Lets face it, people are lazy, and even though the new UI is nice and sleek, it's not going to suddenly make lazy people not lazy anymore

I'm sorry if I've repeated anything that was previously posted, it's very late, I'm very tired, and I started to skim the last few posts

[ColdHeart]

A question to all the No-Skill Up via UI people.

WHY?

I still can't see your point.

I am trying to skill up smithing. I have to get 20 Sea Tempers, 40 HQ Sheet metal, 20 Imbued Jade, 20 Leather Padding, 20 Metal rings. All these need subcombines or an imbuer in the case of the jade. Getting this much is time consuming already and still an effort.

I am still getting the ingredients. I am still travelling to Freeport for the forge. I am still losing the ingredients and generally making a lose on the combines. So why make me put each ingredient into the forge and hit combine? Why is that such an important part of the process it CANNOT be taken away?

WHY IS PUTTING EACH INGREDIENT INTO THE CONTAINER TO HITTING COMBINE SO IMPORTANT. WHY ARE YOU FORGETTING THE FARMING AND EXPENDITURE STILL NEEDED TO BE DONE. WHY ARE YOU ALL DOOMSAYERS!

and relax...

The final step is not the be all and end all of skilling up. People cannot skip the cost or the farming needed to be done. You still need to travel to the forge to get smithing up.

Also I think you are forgetting one vital thing...
Baking uses 2 recipes for 191. Fish rolls and Patty melts. Some people like doing the mid combines, but no one using the UI will be able to only use those 2 recipes without reverting to "the old way" for a good portion of it.
Same with Brewing, best you can get is 60ish skill? from fetid essence. The fist 60 odd will still be done "the old way".

Sorry, I will still respect any 250 tailor purely for the amount of farming needed. If you can't see this but only "everyone" getting 250 in every tradeskill (didn't realise the new UI gave everyone the AAs for free as well) then I pity you.

Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

[Tudamorf]

Originally posted by ColdHeart
WHY IS PUTTING EACH INGREDIENT INTO THE CONTAINER TO HITTING COMBINE SO IMPORTANT.

Because for many trade skills (or portions of trade skills), that's 90% of the effort. By taking away the primary source of effort without a suitable alternative, you trivialize the skill gain process. Faster and easier is not necessarily better when it comes to earning an in-game reward.

[borblefoot furtoe]

"The final step is not the be all and end all of skilling up. People cannot skip the cost or the farming needed to be done. You still need to travel to the forge to get smithing up."


I happen to disagree with you most every subcombine/raw material needed for a skillup combine is available in the bazaar for a price. Plat is way to easy to come by for that to act as any significant barrier.

Secondly, for skill up items I don't really see farming as the hard part of tradeskills it does not bother me to go hunt my own materials. Farming is not difficult it is just time consuming.

Siting in front of the tradeskill container of your choice. Moving the proprer subcombine components back and forth and clicky combine several thousand times is the difficult part of tradeskills. It is what makes them challenging to do.

It is why so few people bother with them in the first place. Anyone can farm for a few hours at a time or spend plat in the bazaar. Few people have the patients for all the clicking.


The new UI trivializes the hardest part of tradeskills. Even with removing skillups fromt he UI it still makes it much easier to GM a tradeskill than before and I am not going to go into all the possible ramification of that as there are plenty of other threads dealing with the topic.


Borblefoot Futoe
storm warden
Resolution
Firiona Vie Server

[Pretty High Elf]

I'm a GM brewer (229) even before the multiple bag open patch thanks to the 9th ring ale. While Brewing will be one of the tradeskills that'll be affected most by the upcoming UI change, I don't see why shouldn't the the UI allow people to practice skills easier. Afterall, the game's aim is to make people enjoy it instead of giving out rewards like "Hey, I can suffer through zillion mouse clicks without breaking my wrist".

[TheGiantOne]

Some valid points have been brought up and I would like to put in my 2 1/2 coppers as it were.

Seems like the major concerns some people have are:

Too Fast a path for skillups.
Too Many GM's in Tradeskills.
Tradeskill Economy in General.

This is just my opinion as a Tradeskiller.

Yes this will offer a faster path for those wanting to go up the ladder faster to GM status in any tradeskill. However I don't think the gods want 10000 GM Tradeskillers on each server. There would be no uniquness to tradeskilling anymore.

Tradeskilling Economy for all those nifty items that used to be worth a lot now unfortunately a lot of the items that we can make have been superceded by LDoN.
An example: Hurricane BP has only about a 25% success ratio on the average and yet still costs 50k for the materials to make one as a GM tradeskiller yet a Architect's Bejeweled BP which drops in LDoN sells for 11k.

LDoN in my opinion ruined a lot of the tradeskill items we could make from mid level items on up.

Sorry but you can't compete with dropped items and this is just one of several items that costs a lot more to make than a easily acquired dropped item.

If you want to put in 100's of so-called new tradeskilll items then at least put in some recipies from ingredients from that expansion that allow GM tradeskilllers to make items for level 60's on up also.

In my opinion unless you straighten that out before you put in the new interface all you will do is add to the problem when the new expansion comes out with the hundreds of new items coming out that are dropped within the new zones.

As you have to have balance bewteen classes therefore you also need balance between what is dropped and what can be made.

One other thing I would support is instead of carrying around 6 (almost 7) trophies I would prefer to have just one that would increase the stats on it to equal to all the trophies you have earned. Everytime you get a trophy you turn that one in with your existing one and get a stat improved one.

And last but definitely not least I would would like to thank Brenlo and the rest of the Team from EQ for answering some of our concerns and feedback on these boards.

[ColdHeart]

Just as travel and exping has become easier, now tradeskills are becoming easier. One step of the process has become easier.

These complaints are most likely the same as when SoL and PoP came out. All the high lvl people complaining about how easy it is to get to 65 nowadays. Same arguement.

You say plat is not a significant barrier? Is that coming from a lvl 65 who can happily farm the best plat spots? I am sure some classes would disagree. I've had to put off a lot of tradeskilling because I couldn't get the funding behind me.

I would say farming is much more relaxing on the wrist than the combining. I have had fun training the spiders in CC and AEing them as a SK. Still doesn't mean I get bored of it. It is still time consuming. It is still effort needed to put into tailoring.

Now the UI takes away the repetitive clicking. To be honest, if the UI was there and didn't give skill ups if used I'd still be at 240 brewing. I made Kaladim's for selling. I had effective max skill. So why bother doing the extra clicks if I can speed up the process. The last 10 points are pointless if you have a geerlok or trophy.

I am not sure the two sides will ever agree on this. It is bringing TSs in line with the rest of EQ. But I personally very much doubt it will seriously damage the tradeskill community by letting people's wrists relax a little more as they skill up.

[Nepper]

Complaints aside...

Ok, all complaining/complimenting aside, seeing as how components to Karana's Heartfruit Salad, and Broader's Revenge were found via test (and Broader's was WAY off, so thanks to the new UI or it may never have been found), HAS ANYONE GONE THROUGH THE NEW UI EXTENSIVELY TO CHECK FOR UNKNOWN/UNSOLVED RECEPIES? I'd do it myself, but PC is in the shop (darn kids....LOL!) so it'll be a few days before I get back online other than on boards at work...

[eniamn]

/mourn ui thread
getting a little at the edges.
i am looking forward to the change. making it not work for skillups would be like making pop stones only work for druids and wizard.

[Krazick]

Nepper,

Until it goes live... It is likely gonna be a major pain to try and find "ALL" of the missing (from EQ Traders DB) recipes. They haven't put in all the recipes that are auto-learned/can-learned yet. Or that is what I interpret Tanker's comments to imply.

There will likely be many that will pop-up and dance as we go along.

[Tudani]

How many die-hard tradeskillers on every server have CTS or other wrist problems? I know that I don't have CTS but I have repeatedly done skillup sessions to the point where my wrist is killing me. I've also wondered when SoE would end up in a lawsuit because of soemone getting permanent wrist problems from the tradeskill system. For all of you people saying how we shouldn't be allowed to skill up with the new system...take a moment and think. Do you really want to see friends (in and out of game ones) and yourself with RL wrist injuries because you can't skill up with the new system?

All that removing skillups from the new system would do would be to punish those that have wrist problems and have been slowely working up their skills as much as their pain would allow. Who cares if stuff gets easier, if selling prices go down a bit, we all know that we'll be spending less of our time to make these items, which means we can either make more, or go spend more time hanging with friends in game, farming plat, working on quests, farming more skillup items etc. It means that you will no longer have to spend an entire day doing subcombines for solstice robes to get ready for a bit run, or the same for many other items.

Yes it will effect the economy. Selling bags in bazaar did too, and I think we've mostly all agreed that that worked out much better than many had feared. It's human nature to resist changes but as everybody will be effected by the same changes we will all still be on a level playing field. At least give things a chance as far as the skilling via the new system goes. I'm sure if it doesn't work out well that Brenlo and the Dev team will look into changing it post-release.

[Mumboh]

I don't think the gods want 10000 GM Tradeskillers on each server.

I suspect that is pretty much what the gods do want, or if not 10000 GMs, at least 10000 people doing tradeskills. Right now everyone in the game can go adventure and gain XPs. You can make that as hard or as easy as you want depending on whether you take a group deep into a challenging dungeon or sit in Dreadlands-POwhatever and constapull. But there is no mind-numbing, body-injuring pre-requisite for that. So everyone does it.

A very small percentage of people do tradeskills, precisely because of the mind-numbing, body-injuring pre-requisites for tradeskills.

The new UI will open up an area of the game that has been under-used by the vast majority of the paying customers of EQ. Everyone I have talked to about this is very excited, except a minority of the people who have a conflict of interest with there being more tradeskillers.

If more people do tradeskills, there will be more tradeskill content in the game. The content will be better tested. Maybe there will be entirely new tradeskills added to the game. I think involving more people is a good thing.

In any case, it will still be tedious to get to 250, even in relatively easy tradeskills like pottery. Most people aren't going to stick with it to that extent, so I don't think the new UI is going to produce a huge influx of new GMs (like the planar AA did).

[Arbrelax]

About Time!

I've read almost all the posts here and can actually agree with most of the concerns raised. Any major change like this will have consequences, both expected and unexpected.

Are we on the cusp of an apocalyptic, game destroying change that will forever unbalance the game economy and the way that people play (tradeskilling and farming for supplies vs. raiding and other hunting activities which can lead to items of use)? I doubt it . . . but if it is about to happen, how EXCITING to be there at ground zero when the bomb goes off and feel the rush of destruction. And when this “world” (which I admit I do enjoy and spend probably far too much time in as it is) does go up in flames around me . . . the sun will still be rising in the east in the real world and another MMORPG will probably come along that I find interesting (heh, maybe even EQ II).

My response is BRING IT ON, YESTERDAY! Here's why:

I do agree with what seems to be a basic underlying premise and belief of the hardworking tradeskill community represented on this website and in game (and probably also in their own real life experiences – macroers, cheaters and tax evaders are not included in this assertion). That premise is that effort should be rewarded and there should be a positive correlation between effort and reward (i.e. more effort results in more reward).

For me the question then becomes, in the context of a GAME, what is a “LEGITIMATE” form of required “effort” (input/expense) that results in the “reward” (item produced, adulation of jealous admirers, decrease in time to achieve other goals as time spent doing one activity makes you more efficient at doing another activity etc.).

Time spent actually “doing” something, due to our current inability to manipulate time and space, results in the universal input for all real life activities. This universal input need not exist in a computer game and, in fact (aside from macroers and other cheaters), may be eliminated or manipulated by design.

Another basic input is the application of intellect, the basic figuring out of how to do something, its process, how to do it better etc. In EQ, this is present in the way that people “learn” trade skill recipes, figure out where to get the items they need etc. It seems that as originally programmed, EQ attempted to instill a role-playing effort in requiring that people travel around to find recipe books. One might expect that while of arcane intellectual interest to certain High Elves, the ingredients and processes for making a dish only consumable by an Ogre, might not be part of the general knowledge base in Felwithe. Intellectually curious and determined High Elves might find a way, through means noble or not to find the recipes for themselves. This effort at instilling some intellectual effort into tradeskilling was circumvented by, GASP, the existence of websites such as the very one I am posting on. (Hmmm . . . while not the “same” thing as macro using . . . it does circumvent one of the intended design elements of the game to make for a role playing “game”).

A third basic input is physical effort, the actual “doing” of the manipulation of some physical reality to affect a change, to create something new and different out of something that currently exists. In real life this involves the use of human physical labor which in most cases is aided by the use of some machine (which may be very rudimentary, such as a “stick” – or which may be very sophisticated, such as an electron scanning microscope). In real life some folks sit in high rise buildings manipulating words and images and getting paid a lot of money for very little actual physical effort. Other folks use pickaxes and stoop and bend and end up with broken bodies at age 30 from all their physical efforts.

That is a very simplified (and very incomplete, but I think still helpful) description of how the real world seems to work and how it is replicated in many role playing games.

My assertion is that the requirement of inputs of Time (which admittedly has a physical “endurance” component) and Intellectual Effort are Legitimate inputs in the Effort / Reward equation for a computer role playing game. While some form of physical dexterity (which I define as the basic manipulation of a keyboard to effect actions in the RPG world) may be a legitimate requirement, the types of physical activities currently required of Tradeskilling are NOT.

At best the short repetitive movements they require may be considered legitimate for an Action Shooter Game. At worst they are an unnecessary and even dangerous game feature which are (as testified to in prior posts and likely in many more instances not recorded here) resulting in ACTUAL PHYSICAL INJURY and PAIN to the users of this product. (Oops, did that sound like something out of a lawsuit pleadings? Perhaps those words have actually been written on some document delivered to Sony or soon to be ???)

Bottom line: Any change will have consequences, intended and unintended. Sony should (whether or not their attorneys or the courts ultimately believe they have a responsibility to do so) use their brains (the intellectual component) to find some way to reduce those undesirable consequences (or mitigate them after the fact) and retain the “fun factor” in what should be their quest to eliminate the ILLIGITMATE effort input of a physical activity that has a demonstrated and measurable harmful effect on their customers.

Bottom Bottom Line: OH FOR TUNARE’S SAKE!!! IT’S A GAME!

[Dwelian Soulbinder]

the thread is probably too long now for the developers to see this, but i would like to offer some comments and suggestions to the tradeskill interface:

*) i agree wholeheartedly with many others that not every recipe should automatically show up in the interface, but i feel strongly that there should be conditions for which any recipe can get added.

many of us, i think, are going to think of the combine interface as our recipe journal, and for aesthetic reasons we'd eventually like to be able to use that journal for any recipe we know. just because it's rare and/or not used often doesn't mean we wouldn't like to see it in our journal. it would give us the warm fuzzies.

*) i think it would add an awful lot to the fun of tradeskills were there the ability in the combine interface/recipe journal to offer up partial information on any particular recipe, with some sort of way to eventually fill the rest of it in.

for example, when you hit 200 brewing, perhaps the name "kaladim constitutional" shows up in the interface, but with question marks in the ingredients portion. (there could be a way to hide the total number of ingredients as well, perhaps by putting question marks in all the fields.) if you successfully (or unsuccessfully) make one, it then fills in the rest of the ingredients. but perhaps it only fills in the rest if you're of a reasonble skill level to attempt the combine. after all, it could have been luck. (to extend this part, perhaps you have to do a dozen combines or more [maybe the number being decided per-recipe and/or based on your skill] before a recipe is completed. this could be another kind of "trivial", in the literal sense of the word.)

this could be extended to any degree you want. i personally would think it neat were your combine interface/recipe journal to contain an empty (but identifiable as such) slot for *every possible combine* in that skill, and as you find them, they start filling in. some recipes can get filled in by finding a recipe book, some by talking to an npc, some by a quest, some from deconstruction [see below]; the options are limitless.

for example, suppose for the sake of argument (ie i'm making the number up), there are 312 possible combines in the game for the baking skill. at a 0 baking, you see the 25 common low-level baking skill combines, and 287 blanks where recipes might be. think of the 250-skill bakers trying to fill in those last dozen blank spots.

and perhaps some partial recipes get more complete as you go up in skill level. so misty thicket picnic might show up in the journal by name only when your baking skill is 50, with "?" listed for all ten combine slots. (that is, you know there's a recipe, but you don't have any idea how to make it.) then as you hit 100, the "?" go down to 8, so now you know there are 8 ingredients. at 150, the picnic basket and slice of jumjum cake get filled in, with 6 "?" for the other ingredients, etc. (i know, it's a silly example.)

also contributing to the discovery aspect could be the ability for partial recipes to be filled in through experimentation. basically, you pick the recipe as your "experiment" and try to do combines with ingredients that you manually selected. perhaps the interface could give you an indication of how close you are. so for example, if you get 0 out of 6 ingredients right, it says "you don't think you got very close". if you get 5 of 6 right, you get "you come close, but something seems just a little off". if you only try 5 ingredients, but there are 6 needed, and the 5 you used are all right, you get "you come close, but you think a little something is missing". this one has to be carefully balanced between giving out too much information and too little, of course. we've all played "mastermind".

*) i also really like the idea of recipe books that once read (or dragged into the combine interface?) fill in various recipes for you. and using the previous bullet's ideas, perhaps some of the recipes are only partially filled in, because the writer didn't know all the secrets...

*) it'd also be neat to combine experimentation and partial recipes with a concept of "deconstruction". perhaps if you had the result of a tradeskill combine, you could drag it onto the interface and based on your skill get a partial recipe for it. (the item might be destroyed in doing so, however, making it possibly very painful...) for example, suppose "drom champagne" , trivial 222, happens to be a brewing combine for which no published recipe exists, so there is only a blank spot for it in the recipe journal. however, there's a vendor in some obscure place that sells it, and you eventually acquire a bottle. if you were at 0 brewing skill and you dropped the bottle into your tradeskill interface, perhaps only the name of the recipe and no ingredient information showed up, while if you had a 250 brewing skill, the name would show up, along with the bottle ingredient, the flask of water ingredient, and three "?" that you'd just have to discover on your own. (one interesting side effect of this could be rare combines being valuable in the bazaar for their value as a recipe, not necessarily for their stats, especially if some recipes could *only* be done via the tradeskill interface.)

*) wouldn't it also be neat if players could teach recipes to one another?

oops, this got way longer than i expected. sorry about that. thanks for reading, those of you that made it this far.


dwelian soulbinder
cleric of familjen
saryrn server

[Ainyan Dar`Mori]

I'm still trying to figure out why people are whining about this. "Oh no, everyone can become a GM baker/brewer/potter, I'm going to lose my monopoly!"

Get real. I'm a GM in 5 of the tradeskills, trying to finish off the last two. I'm doing it 1) To spend my excess AA points and 2) For an earring, because even in a time guild it's extremely difficult to get any decent ear slots.

The only tradeskill I practice is Pottery. I've been a GM potter since the second day of Luclin. (And that was a long wait at 188). I remember the days of one open bag and trying to skill in a 480 x 640 window. I remember when you could only GM one tradeskill, and when pottery was all but impossible.

I couldn't read through all of these threads. Too many of them were people whining about how 'easy' SOE was making it for people. It's not 'easy'. What made tradeskilling easy was EQTraders. Not having to hunt down a recipe in game, just having to look on the web. This interface merely saves people a lot of pain.

And the new interface isn't going to make anything easier, or harder, for macroers. You think anything will? Get real. These people /enjoy/ it.

As for the new interface, I like it. I'd like to see an option to autoinventory whatever is on your cursor. I pray you impliment the making of stacks. I'll love you forever if you do.

Stop worrying about what this will do to your monopoly. What stopped people from jumping in wasn't the tradeskill... it was the ingredients. And they're still a pain to get.


------
Ainyan Soulspeaker
Ayonae Ro - Coercer
250 (with mods) Potter, Jewelry Maker, Fletcher, Baker, Brewer
205 Blacksmith
196 Tailor
*whimper*