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First of all, there should be some form of parity between mob dropped loot and tradeskill items. Currently, there are some tradeskill recipies that are usefull and marketable, but for every 1 MTP recipe there are hundreds of useless recipies. Forgive the really long post please : )
First off, lets discuss how I think items should drop from mobs.
I think that mobs should drop 4 types of items: cash drop (where appropriate), quest item drops, tradeskill item drops and a loot item drop.
Cash drops is pretty obvious.
Quest item drops is a bit more nebulous. It can be an item you turn in as part of multipart quest, it can be an item you turn in for bounty reward, etc.
Tradeskill item drops I would put in a couple of categories. Mobs living in a zone with foraged items should have a chance to have foraged items on them, perhaps moreso for mobs that are considered a foraging mob. Other tradeskill items are hides, bones, blood, skin, tendons, etc.
Loot item drops would come in 2 categories, vendor loot, and rare items that are good useable gear and the quality of the gear should be on par with the difficulty of killing the mob. The vendor loot is stuff that it is obviously stuff to sell to a vendor.
Now for tradeskills, I am specifically thinking tailoring, but the basic principles should apply to other skills. I believe that tradeskills should produce items that are as good as mob dropped items. I also think they should be a sort of multilevel quest similar to 8th shawl. Also I think obtaining the skill in each skill should be no where near as painful as it is in the game, mostly for tailoring or smithing. If it were really that hard to learn to sew in real life, we would all be naked.
Also, each tradeskill items should rely more on other tradeskills
Here is my example. Tailored armor should involve several steps and items obtained from mobs and foraging. Steps might include: cutting pieces from hide or skin using a pattern. Tanning or preserving the hide or skin. Sewing the pieces into a piece of armor. Reinforcing the armor in some fashion. Addorning the armor with decorative elements. And finally imbuing the armor with power granted from a race/classes god based on completing a quest.
First step would be to obtain skin or hide. The type of skin or hide should determine the stats the final piece would have. The quality of hide should determine how much of the stats the piece should have.
wolf hide grants wisdom
bear hide grants stamina
cat hide grants agility/dex
(other hides for Str, etc)
low quality hide 1 point of stat
medium quality hide 2 points of stat
high quality hide 3 points of stat
Now harder mobs of the same type gives better quality items with even more stats and AC potential
wolf hide normal
mature wolf hide +1 wis, +10% AC
elder wolf hide +2 wis, + 15% AC
Tanning, curing or preserving the hide increases the AC potential of the piece and can add other benefits. The tannin or curing agent can involve using brewed potions to add these benefits. Perhaps some potions can be made with alchemy. Depending on the tannin or curing agent used, different stats can be added to the piece of armor. Examples
mistletoe essence +1 wis
rhino blood +10% AC
Ambergriese +1 char
Ox blood +1 str
Vampire ashes +10 Hps
ground unicorn horn +10 mana
A final product of this step might be called a High Quality Elder Wolf Hide cured in Mistletoe essence. This hide can make +5 wisdom armor with a 15% AC bonus over a normal piece of leather armor.
Now that the hide is cured, it would be cut using a pattern to make a piece of armor. This would be similar to normal tailoring, hide in a tailoring kit with a pattern and shears. On sucess, you get a piece of armor of the appropriate type with the stat bonuses appropriate for up to this point. On failure you get your shears back. Trivial for this stage would be using the tailoring skill and would be relatively low, 130 - 150 depending on which armor piece was attempted.
Next would be to reinforce the armor in some manner. The reinforcing item can be made in smithing. Types would be studs, boning, rings or discs. Different metal should give different stats. The temper the metal is made from should give different stats too. Studs could give 1% AC bonus, boning 2% AC bonus, rings 3% AC bonus, and disks 4% AC bonus. Steel can give Str bonus, iron can give Sta bonus, mithril can give Wis bonus, etc. Tempers can give resistanc stat bonuses. Some can give PR and DR, some CR and FR, some MR, and some all 5. I would say tempers can come in different qualities, the better the quality, the more points that can be given. Low quality temper might give 10 resist points, medium quality temper might give 20 and high quality temper might give 40 resist points. A low quality PR and DR temper would give 5 DR and 5 PR, a medium quality would give 10 PR and 10 DR, and a high quality would give 20 to PR and 20 to DR.
The next phase for tailoring would be to sew on the reinforcing item on the piece. The reinforcing items are placed in a sewing kit with the armor piece. Trivial should be 180 to 210 depending on the piece or armor being attempted (studs<boning<rings<discs). On failure you get your armor back without the reinforcement.
The next step would be to adorn the armor with some form of decoration. It can be embroidery, gems or jewelry, or animal totems. Depending on the armor piece (tunic, leggings, wristbands, etc) you can have from 1 to 5 adornments on the piece, but all must be of the same type. Adornments would give stats depending on what they are. Stats can be statistics like Str, Sta, Wis, Dex, Agi, Int, Cha or Hps, Mana, End, AC. For example say, Mistletoe embroidery gives 1 wisdom per adornment, bear embroidery gives 1 sta per adornment, diamonds give 1 point of Int, Amethyst gives 1 point of Cha, wolf ribs give +5% AC, Bear teeth give 6% AC, mother of pearl gives 10 mana, lion mane gives +1 agi, griffon feathers give 20 mana, etc. Lots of possibilities. To adorn the armor, you combine it in a tailoring kit with an embroidery pattern, the mounted gemstone or the animal fetish plus needle and thread. Trivial for this would be 210 to 300 based on the armor piece being attempted (tunic>leggings>mask>mantle>gloves>boots>belt>wris tbands and jewelcraft piece>animal fetish>embroidery). On failure you get your armor piece back and loose the adornment.
The last step would be to have the item imbued. To do this, you take it to your temple and the guildmaster gives you a quest or series of quests. These can be like ldons where as you increase your favor with your diety you can get better and better effects imbued upon your armor piece. The higher the level you are, the more difficult the quest you are assigned (and more points you earn) and better effect you can get added. It could be things like mana preservation, flowing thought, spell effects to make right clickies, improved healing, etc. The number of favor points would vary depending on the effect you want, FTII might be 400, FTIV might be 800, etc, drones of doom 100, improved damage IV 1000, etc. Once it is imbued, it becomes no drop.
And there you have it. Using this method, people I think would find tradeskills to be useful and fun. At first the different recipies would have to be learned and then people would begin experimenting to figure out what combinations they like. People could customize their armor to suit them best. The item drop rarity of the sub combines would limit their influx into the world.
Also, on another note, I would change the way we skill up. Now with GoD, there are quest with each tradeskill that can take you to I believe in the 50 range? I would add more of these quests that involve farming items and crafting them for a reward and your skill increases as you do them. Completing the three tailoring quests would increase your skill to 200 and would take about 20 hours (same for all tradeskills). The final 50 points would come from making armor for yourself or others. For the final 200-250 range, I would make it so that if you suceed on the piece you skill up, period. The chance of suceeding would be based on your skill and the trivial for what you are attempting.
Anyway, these are my ideas. I know chances are none of these will ever happen, but there is always EQ III : ) Let me know what you think.
Art
First off, lets discuss how I think items should drop from mobs.
I think that mobs should drop 4 types of items: cash drop (where appropriate), quest item drops, tradeskill item drops and a loot item drop.
Cash drops is pretty obvious.
Quest item drops is a bit more nebulous. It can be an item you turn in as part of multipart quest, it can be an item you turn in for bounty reward, etc.
Tradeskill item drops I would put in a couple of categories. Mobs living in a zone with foraged items should have a chance to have foraged items on them, perhaps moreso for mobs that are considered a foraging mob. Other tradeskill items are hides, bones, blood, skin, tendons, etc.
Loot item drops would come in 2 categories, vendor loot, and rare items that are good useable gear and the quality of the gear should be on par with the difficulty of killing the mob. The vendor loot is stuff that it is obviously stuff to sell to a vendor.
Now for tradeskills, I am specifically thinking tailoring, but the basic principles should apply to other skills. I believe that tradeskills should produce items that are as good as mob dropped items. I also think they should be a sort of multilevel quest similar to 8th shawl. Also I think obtaining the skill in each skill should be no where near as painful as it is in the game, mostly for tailoring or smithing. If it were really that hard to learn to sew in real life, we would all be naked.
Also, each tradeskill items should rely more on other tradeskills
Here is my example. Tailored armor should involve several steps and items obtained from mobs and foraging. Steps might include: cutting pieces from hide or skin using a pattern. Tanning or preserving the hide or skin. Sewing the pieces into a piece of armor. Reinforcing the armor in some fashion. Addorning the armor with decorative elements. And finally imbuing the armor with power granted from a race/classes god based on completing a quest.
First step would be to obtain skin or hide. The type of skin or hide should determine the stats the final piece would have. The quality of hide should determine how much of the stats the piece should have.
wolf hide grants wisdom
bear hide grants stamina
cat hide grants agility/dex
(other hides for Str, etc)
low quality hide 1 point of stat
medium quality hide 2 points of stat
high quality hide 3 points of stat
Now harder mobs of the same type gives better quality items with even more stats and AC potential
wolf hide normal
mature wolf hide +1 wis, +10% AC
elder wolf hide +2 wis, + 15% AC
Tanning, curing or preserving the hide increases the AC potential of the piece and can add other benefits. The tannin or curing agent can involve using brewed potions to add these benefits. Perhaps some potions can be made with alchemy. Depending on the tannin or curing agent used, different stats can be added to the piece of armor. Examples
mistletoe essence +1 wis
rhino blood +10% AC
Ambergriese +1 char
Ox blood +1 str
Vampire ashes +10 Hps
ground unicorn horn +10 mana
A final product of this step might be called a High Quality Elder Wolf Hide cured in Mistletoe essence. This hide can make +5 wisdom armor with a 15% AC bonus over a normal piece of leather armor.
Now that the hide is cured, it would be cut using a pattern to make a piece of armor. This would be similar to normal tailoring, hide in a tailoring kit with a pattern and shears. On sucess, you get a piece of armor of the appropriate type with the stat bonuses appropriate for up to this point. On failure you get your shears back. Trivial for this stage would be using the tailoring skill and would be relatively low, 130 - 150 depending on which armor piece was attempted.
Next would be to reinforce the armor in some manner. The reinforcing item can be made in smithing. Types would be studs, boning, rings or discs. Different metal should give different stats. The temper the metal is made from should give different stats too. Studs could give 1% AC bonus, boning 2% AC bonus, rings 3% AC bonus, and disks 4% AC bonus. Steel can give Str bonus, iron can give Sta bonus, mithril can give Wis bonus, etc. Tempers can give resistanc stat bonuses. Some can give PR and DR, some CR and FR, some MR, and some all 5. I would say tempers can come in different qualities, the better the quality, the more points that can be given. Low quality temper might give 10 resist points, medium quality temper might give 20 and high quality temper might give 40 resist points. A low quality PR and DR temper would give 5 DR and 5 PR, a medium quality would give 10 PR and 10 DR, and a high quality would give 20 to PR and 20 to DR.
The next phase for tailoring would be to sew on the reinforcing item on the piece. The reinforcing items are placed in a sewing kit with the armor piece. Trivial should be 180 to 210 depending on the piece or armor being attempted (studs<boning<rings<discs). On failure you get your armor back without the reinforcement.
The next step would be to adorn the armor with some form of decoration. It can be embroidery, gems or jewelry, or animal totems. Depending on the armor piece (tunic, leggings, wristbands, etc) you can have from 1 to 5 adornments on the piece, but all must be of the same type. Adornments would give stats depending on what they are. Stats can be statistics like Str, Sta, Wis, Dex, Agi, Int, Cha or Hps, Mana, End, AC. For example say, Mistletoe embroidery gives 1 wisdom per adornment, bear embroidery gives 1 sta per adornment, diamonds give 1 point of Int, Amethyst gives 1 point of Cha, wolf ribs give +5% AC, Bear teeth give 6% AC, mother of pearl gives 10 mana, lion mane gives +1 agi, griffon feathers give 20 mana, etc. Lots of possibilities. To adorn the armor, you combine it in a tailoring kit with an embroidery pattern, the mounted gemstone or the animal fetish plus needle and thread. Trivial for this would be 210 to 300 based on the armor piece being attempted (tunic>leggings>mask>mantle>gloves>boots>belt>wris tbands and jewelcraft piece>animal fetish>embroidery). On failure you get your armor piece back and loose the adornment.
The last step would be to have the item imbued. To do this, you take it to your temple and the guildmaster gives you a quest or series of quests. These can be like ldons where as you increase your favor with your diety you can get better and better effects imbued upon your armor piece. The higher the level you are, the more difficult the quest you are assigned (and more points you earn) and better effect you can get added. It could be things like mana preservation, flowing thought, spell effects to make right clickies, improved healing, etc. The number of favor points would vary depending on the effect you want, FTII might be 400, FTIV might be 800, etc, drones of doom 100, improved damage IV 1000, etc. Once it is imbued, it becomes no drop.
And there you have it. Using this method, people I think would find tradeskills to be useful and fun. At first the different recipies would have to be learned and then people would begin experimenting to figure out what combinations they like. People could customize their armor to suit them best. The item drop rarity of the sub combines would limit their influx into the world.
Also, on another note, I would change the way we skill up. Now with GoD, there are quest with each tradeskill that can take you to I believe in the 50 range? I would add more of these quests that involve farming items and crafting them for a reward and your skill increases as you do them. Completing the three tailoring quests would increase your skill to 200 and would take about 20 hours (same for all tradeskills). The final 50 points would come from making armor for yourself or others. For the final 200-250 range, I would make it so that if you suceed on the piece you skill up, period. The chance of suceeding would be based on your skill and the trivial for what you are attempting.
Anyway, these are my ideas. I know chances are none of these will ever happen, but there is always EQ III : ) Let me know what you think.
Art
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