Fan Faire Write-up, Part 3: Crafting Masteries and Misc.

[Renjah]

Proctus the main issue here is JC is open to all (unlike Alchemy, Make Poison, and Tinkering), but only one class can really make anything of it. Personally I would be angry if I got 250 skill in say Smithign and then oops now Warriors get Smithign MAstery AA. Grats me wasting time an dmoney GMing a skill that I can no longe use due to the market beign saturated with cheaper warriro made items. If it wasn't for Aid Grimel I would have never waste dtime/money in JC because I can't do anything good with it.

I am allowed to state my opinion right? BTW you will still enchant and combine for me cause I'm so cuddly!

[Meryddian]

Proctus the main issue here is JC is open to all (unlike Alchemy, Make Poison, and Tinkering), but only one class can really make anything of it. Personally I would be angry if I got 250 skill in say Smithign and then oops now Warriors get Smithign MAstery AA. Grats me wasting time an dmoney GMing a skill that I can no longe use due to the market beign saturated with cheaper warriro made items.

You know, the funny thing was that very few people complained about enchanters having the AA for JCM --until-- NTCM points came out... then once EVERYBODY could get 250 for ALL tradeskills, then the complaints about enchanters and JCM (probably because of the value of PoP items in addition to lesser fail rate) started pouring in.

What I find amusing is that people will come to me and pay me for an imbue (ie imbue earth) and run off to get "a friend" to do the smithing combine to imbue the metal bar, and then run back to me and ask for the JC combine, instead of just asking me if I'm smithing-capable too. (trust me, JCM3 doesn't mean I can't fail combines 10 times in a row).

Proctus was correct however, a significant portion of our spells are dedicated to imbuing and enchanting. If you took those away or spread them among other classes, then what combat-related spells would we get instead? (But that's a whooooooooooole other can of worms). I'd gladly trade off some JCM for say, 3 levels of AA Innoruuk's Sarcasm. :dedhorse:

[ColdHeart]

Meryddian, are you saying Enchanters are not already useful in combat and that JCM makes up for this? Yes you have a lot of enchanting/imbueing spells, but they do not take away from your already large versatility in groups. If anything they are in addition to.

I wouldn't mind seeing TSM's for all TS open to all characters. Or if there was some way of limiting each character to one TSM. I think that may be more difficult to code but would mean the market is not overly flooded by easy to make items.

It would also open up the possibility higher Trivs than 335 (Haven't seen any yet). Balance the chance of making it with a TSM against making the 335 triv without. Just a thought.

[LexBardMT]

In the end, nothing definite came of the conversation..

For some reason that doesn't surprise me.

[Noni DeeCups]

I have no issue with Shaman getting an alchemy mastery - because they can only compete with other shaman.

Everyone can do JC. I have always had a problem with JCM. I always will. Is it not enough that you need enchanters to enchant your metal, imbue your gems and make your mana vials? They already have a stranglehold on trade skills across the board. Lets give them a financial edge as well, yeah, since it has absolutely nothing to do with class balancing in groups like the rest of us are judged.

If we must have a crafting mastery in a trade skill that is available to all, then refund the chanters, open the CM AA to everyone and let the player pick the craft.

I would rather not see any masteries other than alchemy, poison and tinkering.

[LexBardMT]

I agree with the JCM beef somewhat also. Enchanters are favored heavily enough with the ability to enchant anything they need, there is no need to throw in a monopoly on the high level combines too.

I'd ultimately like to see AAs like JCM added for every tradeskill and have them opened to everyone (who can use them obviously, rogue/poison, research/INT classes, etc).

[Tudani]

You know, the funny thing was that very few people complained about enchanters having the AA for JCM --until-- NTCM points came out... then once EVERYBODY could get 250 for ALL tradeskills, then the complaints about enchanters and JCM (probably because of the value of PoP items in addition to lesser fail rate) started pouring in.

Before POP there also was really no jewelry that didn't require enchanting/imbuing. There were very few non enchanter jewelers because, frankly, there was no point to doing jewelery other than for the shawl quests. It was also significantly cheaper for an enchanter to raise jewelry since they could imbue their own metals. What's the point of doing a combine yourself when you have to pay a chanter to enchant the metal anyways, it hardly costs more to have them do the combine for you and you save all the money you would have spent skilling up. With POP came jewelry that anybody could combine without a chanter's help. Except, wait, chanters had this AA that made losses way way less. Who cares about a bigger lock on a market that they already had a lock on, but POP removed the first lock leaving JCM the only reason that non chanters couldn't make a profit on jewelry.

[KyrosKrane]

More stuff I dug up.

Here are a few more things I managed to remember from the Fan Faire, with the help of some notes I just found. These notes weren't as detailed as some of the other stuff I'd found, but I'm 90% sure I remembered this right.

Chance to fail on high skill, low trivial combines
The chance to fail a given combine decreases as your skill increases above your trivial. I believe it was Tanker who mentioned this, and he said that for every 50 points between your skill and the trivial, the chance to fail is reduced by 25%.

So, if your skill is 0-49 points above the combine trivial, you have the normal chance to fail as predicted from the formula.

If your skill is 50-99 points above the trivial, your chance to fail is reduced by 25%.

If your skill is 100-149 points above the trivial, your chance to fail is reduced by 50%.

If your skill is 150-199 points above the trivial, your chance to fail is reduced by 75%.

If your skill is 200 or more points above the trivial, your chance to fail is reduced by 100%. The combine becomes no-fail.

(These numbers could be off by one point; my notes aren't very clear. It could be 51-100, 101-150, etc. to get the reductions.)

I don't recall asking whether this checks your modified or your raw skill. I will guess that it checks your modified skill, but that's just a guess.

Cash turn-ins for quests
I asked Tanker at one point about turning in cash for quests. In the text of many quests, the NPC asks for payments in gold pieces or other denominations. Tanker confirmed that the game doesn't care about the denomination you use to make these payments. Any combination of plat, gold, silver, and copper that adds up to the required total will be accepted.

So, for the JBoots quest, Hasten Bootstrutter asks for 3500 gold pieces. You can safely turn in 350pp, or 3000gp and 50pp, or any other combination that adds up to the total he requests. The same applies to any quest that requires cash as part of the quest turn-in.

[kiztent]

Proctus was correct however, a significant portion of our spells are dedicated to imbuing and enchanting. If you took those away or spread them among other classes, then what combat-related spells would we get instead? (But that's a whooooooooooole other can of worms). I'd gladly trade off some JCM for say, 3 levels of AA Innoruuk's Sarcasm. :dedhorse:

I think going the other way would be a much better alternative. Since enchanting is the class name and the "class defining characterisic" I'd recommend they make KEI self only, adjust mana regen rates to reflect this change, let bards keep mez and charm and remove the lines from enchanters.

That way enchanters could maintain their lock on enchanting, and they'd still have spell lines for damage (pets too!) as well as stuns, and haste and slows.

Much more balanced.

[Serenya]

Here are a few more things I managed to remember from the Fan Faire, with the help of some notes I just found. These notes weren't as detailed as some of the other stuff I'd found, but I'm 90% sure I remembered this right.


Cash turn-ins for quests
I asked Tanker at one point about turning in cash for quests. In the text of many quests, the NPC asks for payments in gold pieces or other denominations. Tanker confirmed that the game doesn't care about the denomination you use to make these payments. Any combination of plat, gold, silver, and copper that adds up to the required total will be accepted.

So, for the JBoots quest, Hasten Bootstrutter asks for 3500 gold pieces. You can safely turn in 350pp, or 3000gp and 50pp, or any other combination that adds up to the total he requests. The same applies to any quest that requires cash as part of the quest turn-in.

As of about 1 month ago Hasten Bootstrutter will still eat your ring, plat, and rapier if you hand him the coin in plat rather then gold.....

[Kilauea Bacchus]

Last I knew, Lodi shield quest was still a no go if you used anything other than 10K gold (or whatever amount of gold it is)

[Lickity]

I can only speak for myself, but when I did my JBoots quest on my warrior and my Lodi for my druid, I used plat in both cases, and both of them still have their items... I suspect you did something else wrong on your turnin, perhaps you were invis, or your faction with the otters is too low for the Lodi quest.

[Kilauea Bacchus]

No, faction was fine, because after a GM reimbursal with the admonishment to "use what he tells you", the quest was completed successfully (with gold).

Maybe it changed in a more recent patch... Haven't gotten around to camping lodi anytime in the past 2 weeks LOL

[KyrosKrane]

As of about 1 month ago Hasten Bootstrutter will still eat your ring, plat, and rapier if you hand him the coin in plat rather then gold.....

I mentioned this exact point to Tanker. I had told a friend that she could use 350pp instead of 3500gp for JBoots, and Hasten ate her turn-in. Tanker said that someone just before her must have done a partial turn-in which screwed up her turn in.

[Maevenniia]

I mentioned this exact point to Tanker. I had told a friend that she could use 350pp instead of 3500gp for JBoots, and Hasten ate her turn-in. Tanker said that someone just before her must have done a partial turn-in which screwed up her turn in.

I'd ask why they don't fix it so previous turn-ins don't mess with a person's current attempt to do the quest, except that I suspect the solution would eliminate Multi Questing.