Questions for the Fan Faire

[KyrosKrane]

This is the list of questions I plan to ask at the Fan Faire in April. I have also sent this list in to the Developer's Corner. The questions are arranged in categories, and within categories, they're sorted by most to least important.

Past commentary has been removed to a new post lower in the thread.

Game mechanics

• Is there a greater chance of getting a skill-up with a sucessful combine than with a failed combine?
• Is the chance for a skill-up greater for combines with trivials closer to your skill? i.e., Will you skill up from 0-20 in brewing in fewer combines (on average) making MHB (triv 248) or Short Beers (triv 31)? This also relates to the tradeskill "con colors" in the new UI.
• In the far past, Block to Large Brick to Small Brick conversions used to yield two of the smaller item when combined with a Chisel in a Forge. (People who were grouped with the smith would see the message for two items being made.) Due to limitations of the game engine at the time, though, the smith would only get one resulting item. The recipe was changed to yield only one result (and thus one message). Later on, the game engine was changed to allow duplicate results. Is it possible to change these combines so that they again yield two of the result? This applies to all types of ore, including store-bought Medium and High Quality ore, velium, acrylia, mithril, and others, including enchanted variants.
• Can there be some exceptions made for the quest recipies not being learnable? (e.g. Enchanted Velium Bits, Vial of Velium Vapors subcombines)
• Can the AutoInventory button on the new UI be made to put all the items back in your bags (for combines that return tools or have multiple yields)? Alternately, could an "Autoinventory All" button be added?

Requested enhancements

• A few months ago, the number of slots on a vendor was reduced from 100 (of which 20 were "under the counter") to 80. This took away the ability of players to "vendor mine" which served as both a plat sink and a way to increase the flow of usable items (particularly tradeskill supplies). Are there any plans to restore those extra slots?
• Given the number of drops added to spiderlings for newbie quests, the effective drop rate of spiderling silk has decreased hugely over the last year or so. Could the drop rate be increased?
• You can currently break down Fine Steel weapons to get various quantities of High Quality ore. Could a similar conversion be added to convert Velium weapons to assorted blocks, bricks, and pieces of velium ore?
• Could we please get bazaar tokens for non-weight-reducing bags? Examples include the reinforced jewelry kit, the black marble mortar and pestle, and the Deluxe Sewing Kit.

Previously promised or discussed

• The disparity in the number of tempers and blocks of ore needed for plate vs. chain armor has long vexed smiths, particularly when dealing with very rare components like elemental smithing. At the last Fan Faire, it was stated you would be reviewing this disparity. Has anything come about on this front?
• Alternately, for elemental combines, could each armor use two tempers? One would be made with more common components, and used to make the subombines for elemental armors. The current tempers (rare) would be used in the final combine of the armor. This is a parallel to cultural smithing, which uses two different tempers.
• Could the existing tradeskill trophys be adjusted so that each yields a unique 100% WR bag? Thus, a person with three trophys could get three different 100% WR bags that don't poof on logging. This was mentioned as being possible in the past.
• What happened to Froglok cultural smithing? The cultural forge is in Gukta, and Absor (Alan VanCouvering) posted shortly after LoY came out that Froglok cultural was complete. In fact, he thought it had already gone live. Any news on this front?
• Also at the last Fan Faire, you mentioned that you would be investigating the PoJ prisoner who discusses making an arrow. His text sounds a great deal like the description of a tradeskill combine, yet no recipe (or even matching components) have yet been found. Is this in fact a valid recipe? What hints or advice can you provide us regarding it?

Wishlist

• The drop rate for the rare parts of elemental armors are incredibly low, and what few items drop are typically horded by upper-end guilds. Could the drop rate be increased so as to allow a greater flow of the items into the general (non-uberguild) market?
• Are there any alternative ways planned to help tradeskiller find rare items on vendors? For example, it's often been suggested that when selling an item to a "full" vendor, it shouldn't automatically disappear. Rather, the oldest player-sold item would poof and the item being sold would appear at the top of the list. This would allow vendors to keep a "rotating stock" of player-sold items.
• Is it possible to make recipes yield different amounts based on the skill of the tradeskiller? e.g., allowing 6 or 7 arrows per combine rather than the normal 5 if your skill is far above the trivial.
• Will Half-elves and Vah Shir be receiving any kind of cultural armor? It doesn't have to be diety-specific, just race-specific.
• Will frogloks receive LoY-style cultural robes?
• Will cultural armor be added for Iksar Monks, Necromancers, and Beastlords?
• Could we get a "master recipe book" that allows us to see all our learned recipes at once, regardless of tradeskills? This would only apply for items that don't appear in tradeskill containers by default.

Tradeskill quests

• Currently, if a melee class player wanted to obtain the Phylactery, they would have to do the full Grand Robe of the Oracle quest. However, the robe they obtain is useless to them, if they obtain it at all. The Token of Service cannot be multi-quested with another player. In short, melee classes get half the rewards from this quest that a caster class would get. Are there plans to add an item equivalent to the Grand Robe or Tunic for melee classes? Alternately, could the Token of Service be made tradable or MQ'able so as to provide some measure of compensation for melee classes that undertake the quest?
• Any there any plans for more Coldain Prayer Shawl / Aid Grimel type quests? Ideally, ones that require very high tradeskill levels, but no flagging requirements or access to restricted zones (since not everyone can get flagged).

General

• Will there ever be recipes (not quests) for new items that require more than one skill over 200 (because of nodrop subcombines)? Currently there is no significant need/use for the New Tanaan Crafting Mastery AA other than the Aid Grimel quest, that couldn't be handled just as well by several characters without the AA.

Tradeskill super-trophies
Are there any plans to add some kind of super trophy for multi-tradeskill GM's? Here are some ideas on what could be done in this vein.

• A tradeskill super-trophy is defined as a trophy you can only obtain once you have all seven tradekill trophies (excluding alchemy, poison making, tinkering, and research), or one that requires 250 in all seven general tradeskills, or both.
• One possibility is a combine that requires all seven trophys plus some other item, yielding back six normal trophys and one super trophy with increased stats or abilities.
• Another option is for a no-fail combine of all seven trophies in a quest container to yield the super-trophy. The super-trophy could be combined by itself in a forge to yield a no-drop, no-rent, lore item with a bonus to smithing; it could be combined in a tailoring kit or loom to yield a tailoring-boosting item, and so on.
• Perhaps this super trophy could allow the wielder to exceed the 252 cap on tradeskills -- if it were a 10% mod for a 250 tradeskiller, the wielder's effective skill would be 275 rather than 252.
• Another popular option is to have the super-trophy reduce fail rates, much like the enchanter Jewelcrafting Mastery AA. This reduces enchanters' lock on one tradeskill while still giving them an advantage -- the super-trophy requires being a GM in all seven tradeskills, whereas enchanters can get the same benefit purely with AA's.
• Alternately, a single super-trophy with multiple tradeskill mods on it would also be nice.

Questions I don't plan to ask personally

Note that I personally don't agree with the implications of some of these questions, but I'm listing them here for completeness.

• Are there any plans to add additional tinkered items to the game? A Collapsible Brew Barrel seems to be a very popular option.
• Previously, it was mentioned that some tinkering components could be made stackable. Is this still in the works?
• Are there any plans to make Shawl, Oracle Robe, or Solstice earring quests with rewards aimed primarily at melee and hybrid classes? Currently, all three of these quests provide rewards that are far more valuable to casters than to melee, and the Aid Grimel quest requires extensive flagging that not all players can get.
• Will Celestial Essence still be makable in a Marble Mortar and Pestle? With or without the new UI?
• Are there any plans to improve the GM paths for smithing and tailoring?
• Is it possible to implement a way to increase the yeild on some recepes and tradeskill recpes that are made from rare and/or hard to get supplies?
• Will there be added Cultural Specific armor for Iksar Monk , Necromancer and Beastlord?
• Will the Iksar Necromancer skullcap quests ever be finsihed so that the reward is appropriate for the amount of work that goes into making it, and more in line with the final items recieved for the Shaman/Monk and Shadow Knight Iksar's?
• Could there be implented a quest that rewards people for improveing there faction with other races or races in general?
• Why is LDoN Deep Cavern armor made using swamp temper made from pondweed, instead of from Deep Cavern Fungus? Did you put pondweed in the recipe by mistake?
• How come halberds, axes, and scimitars were skipped in the new GoD weapon recipes, after being in all the other smithed weapon sets?
• Is there a cap (hard or soft) on the additional chance for skill ups from having Int/Wis >255? >280? >305?
• Can NPC vendor decide not to try to resell loot whose only purpose in life is to be sold back to vendors? That is, is it possible to delete items with no quest or tradeskill use (so-called cash drops) from vendor inventories as soon as they are sold?
• Would it be possible to just make foraging automatic (ie every two minutes a new foraged items is dropped in your inventory). Maybe as an AA purchase.
• Is it possible to have the forage engine check to see if you already have something that's lore before attempting to give you another lore item (e.g. Ripened Heartfruit) and give you something else instead?
• Is there a plan to un-nerf fletching and pottery? They are not easy tradeskills to learn by far.
• There needs to be some additional path to at least low 200s. The drop rate of superb and flawless rockhopper hides is simply too low to make them a viable skill up method.
• Is it possible to add a Magus in the Abysmal Sea? (On the ship, of course).
• What is the purpose of the GoD tradeskill recipes? Almost all of the stuff made is almost totally useless considering the cost required and the recommended levels. In addition, the drop rate on most of the tradeskill items is horrible, meaning that it is not a viable skill up mechanism either.
• Can we get quest NPC's who only offer tradeskill quests if you have your GM trophy? "Show me the proof of your skill."
• Please take Nitram Anizok, and move him to PoT. (Leaving a non-merchant NPC to trigger the Xanamech event). Or make the items that ONLY he sells stack. Or make him near non-See Invis, KoS mobs.
• Will pottery ever get some new (and accessible) recipes? It has been skipped in LoY and LDoN expansions.

[Weberran]

I would also ask about the implementation on new items that appears since the recipe UI came into play. The only one off the top of my head are the goblin(fuzzy memory) pottery stuff that came out (uses something of rallos zek)... sorry early brain dead.. take pick ....


Am sure there are lots of equivalents for other trade skills.

[Balkin]

Re, the number of slots dropping from 100 (20 hidden) to 80, with no hidden.

As per the last fan faire in Chicago, it was stated that this was done deliberately, and that the slots would not be restored. You can ask again, but you'll probably get the same answer.

I LOVE the idea of rotating stock! Please try and get that question worked in... *grin*

[Koru]

It's been stated that there are around 3000 undiscovered recipies in the game. Are there any plans to add any hints in game to help in their discovery?

I seem to recall something being mentioned about reviewing tinkering and possibly adding more things to make or making more components stack. Are there any plans to add more tinkered toys for the gnomes to make in the near future? Prehaps... dare I say it? Collapsible brew barrels? It's amazing what gnomes can cram into a bag.

Any plans to make more solstice, shawl or Oracle type quests involving items with focus to melees? Meaning, while those quests produce excellent items they certainly have more casting focus than bashing focus so to speak.

Any plans on making cross-trade items? Things like tinkered devices with charges powered by alchemical potions instead of mana batteries. Or smithed objects powered by poison refined fuel?

[Flabbo]

Main concern - temper disparity between plate/chain/leather elemental armor vs cloth curing agents. To make a livestone bp it takes 7 rare tempers vs 3 for a chain/leather vs 1 for cloth robe. The drop rate on some of this stuff is astoundingly bad. Coupled with the fact that lots of temper items are used in multiple recipes, and you have a problem.

[andyhre]

Stackable Unfired Ceramic Linings. Maddoc said on a post here he would look into it. The Fired ones stack, why not the unfired.

[bana-zir]

Since CE were moved from M&P to Mixing Bowl, will they be making a Marble Mixing Bowl? If not, will they maintain the ability to make CE with a Marble M&P (without the UI?)

[Turlo Lomon]

Drop the pally comments. You will incite a riot with any rogue present.

(We are still missing our GoD abilities from Melee Part 2, and our discipline quest results in "Sorry, this is not working at this time").

[Ursawraith]

Originally posted by andyhre
Stackable Unfired Ceramic Linings. Maddoc said on a post here he would look into it. The Fired ones stack, why not the unfired.

Well thats obvious the clay would moosh together and you would have 1 really thick lining.

[andyhre]

Just stack it with a very thin piece of parchment in between, like the uncooked pie filling in your grocer's freezer.

[Kilauea Bacchus]

Where are the blueberry muffins I asked for at the san fran fan faire

[Brodybeard]

I would like to know if SOE has any plans to modify ore breakdown yields. It seems silly that a block of an ore eventually only yields two small pieces.

1 Block of X Ore --> 1 Large Brick of X Ore -->
1 Small Brick of X Ore --> 2 Small Pieces of X Ore

And do they have any plans to review Cultural Tailoring and Smithing? My Bristlebane-worshipping Halfling wants to be able to make Bristlebane armor! Why does his god only grant that ability to dwarves?!?

[Nolrog]

I can think of a few, that aren't tradeskill related:

Will there be changes/updates to the berserker class to make them more useful? The berserker AAs seem to be direct copies of the warrior AAs, but up until this point, each class had a few AAs that were specific to them. Will you add in class specific AAs to them? What about throwing mastery (like archery mastery) and endless axe holding thingy (like endless quiver.)? Ranged criticals anyone?

For tradeskills:
Any plans on changing the GM route for the two hardest trades, baking and brewing (just kidding, tailoring and smithing)? They are both insanely hard and take a tremendous amount of time, money and sanity to GM.

What about adding a trophy for people who have 7 trophies? Something like a GM Tradeskiller's Trophy that would have nicer stats than any of the regular trophies, or even similar stats, but 10% modification to each skill, rather than 5%?

Any plans for more coldain prayer shawl / aid grimmel type quests. Perhaps something that takes very high tradeskill levels, but doesn't have the flagging requirements that grimmel does (since not everyone can get flagged.)

Increasing the freaking drop rate on spiderling silks? I shouldn't have to kill 20 spiderlings and get 5 silks. Perhaps make every MoB on Norrath drop velium to make the EBVs much easier.

I would like to know if SOE has any plans to modify ore breakdown yields. It seems silly that a block of an ore eventually only yields two small pieces.

1 Block of X Ore --> 1 Large Brick of X Ore -->
1 Small Brick of X Ore --> 2 Small Pieces of X Ore

And to further this comment, if you go in the opposite direction, the conversions are not the same.

3 small pieces --> 1 small brick / 3 small bricks --> 1 large brick / 3 large bricks --> 1 block

[Trezark]

While on the subject of Froglok cultural smithing, could you mention the somewhat related issue of Froglok cultural robes? I don't know if a dev has ever commented on it before, but it's always bugged me. I don't even play a Frog, I just hate the lapse in continuity. If Iksar get robes that all use Necro words, shouldn't Frogloks get robes that all use Wizard runes?

[MartanioKotiz]

Tradeskills-
I remebered someone saying that no new cutlural armor was to be impemented until ingame cutlural armor was made more balanced. Some of the cultural armor is quite good for the amount of risk/reward that goes into makeing it. For instance High Elf. But as for some like Iksar Cultural this armor quite frankly is horrible stats. And it is also if not one of the hardest cutlual smithing to make as it requires so much Velium, Sarnak Blood, Iksar Blood (Wtf?!) Froglock Blood , Blue Diamonds, and so on.

Question 1. Is it possible to implement a way to increase the yeild on some recepes and tradeskill recpes that are made from rare and/or hard to get supplies?

In the current system there is some recpes thar are far too dificult or time consumeing to make with the sheer number of hard to get or rare ingrediants that go into makeing them. I understand that makeing an item more common could have a negative effect on the price of the ingrediants and even the final product.
But this problem should not be ingnored. In one paticular instance someone else mentioned there amount of supplies required to make plate armor and chain armor of certain armors is simply mindnumbing. One way I see to fix this is instead of makeing one temper that it makes 5- 10 instead.
Also this could also make lower end armor more apealing to make /skill up on. Recepes that I know that could use a boost are PoP Smithing and Tailoring, Shadow Scream Armor, Iksar Cultural Temper's, Taw Ew Plate Armor, Tae Ew Tailoring and Acrylia Bones Armor are some I can think of at the top of my head.


Question 2. Will there be added Cultural Specific armor for Iksar Monk , Necromancer and Beastlord?

As for now I don't know of any armor that is currently in game for them. Being said I think that being so isolated for such a long time they would have a need and or time to develop there resources into makeing armor for all of it's classes.. Not to mention that the Brood of Kotiz is seen as such a powerful force in the Cabilis army. Why not make armor for there robe wearing fellows?


This was mentioned before that in PoP and with a lot of smithing recepes there is a huge disparity in the amount of supplies that go into makeing some of the armor. I could make 2 Chain Bps for the amount of supplies it takes to make one

Quest
1.Will the iksar Necromancer skullcap quests ever be finsihed so that the reward is apropiate for the amount of work it goes into makeing it? and in line with the final items recieved for the Shaman/Monk and Shadow Knight Iksar's?

Currently if you do the quest you will spend maybe 20 hours at least to get to the final in game cap only to receive a cap that you can buy a better one for at most 25 plat. And what is up with the fact that the last cap is tradeabler and if I rember correctly can be used by all races?

2.Could there be implented a quest that rewards people for improveing there faction with other races or races in general?

When I started the game there was quite a large need to raise your faction as it was needed on some server's to reach your server specific trade zone and or help travel around Norrath. But with recent changes and past changes there is hardly any reason to raise any of these factions if any at all. I imagine that most people raise a faction is to raise up just high enough to do a specific quest. For instant Coldain Prayer Shawl Quest and Velious Armorr quests. But with the introduction of such a variety of items on the open market and the introduction of so many quest that don't require faction and that a majority of the old world items are not even good enough for risk/reward of completeing the quest even for the most novice or begining player. So in the mast the reward for raiseing a paticular faction with a city or group of NPC's was rewarded but now with advent of PoP portals and other influences this is no longer the case. Can there be a quest that is put in the game that gives a reward on diplomacy/faction raiseing? My suggestion just have a mail type courier quest where the peope of Norrath are trying to come to peace or stregthen already strong bonds by sending diplomats to other cities and require you to be seen at a certain faction level to continue the "peace talks". . Some races would never see eye to eye for instance Iksar with any of the other filty races of norrath (Haha) But there could be a Good , Neutral version and eveil version so thta the groups talk to each other. While anyone can do the other quests it would be balanced out as it is already very dificult to raise some factions if not impossible. The reward could be Ring that is worn on the finger slot that increases as you gain more diplomatic skills. Maybe eventually ending up with a item that has a right click effect of Alliance or other faction raiseing spell. This way it wouldnt nesceraly be just for caster's but could be used by everyone. If not that effect there could be melle version (Damage Shield that increases with strength of the ring) Priest version (Improved healing that increases with strength of the ring or Purecaster (Faction Modifier).

Armor/Equipment

Could the Necromancer Epic's casting time be reduced down to 2-4 intead of the increadbly long casting time it currently has?




Just some of my thought's tell me what you think.