Top 10 List

[Nolrog]

Hey Everyone.

As you may know, all of the other "classes" are submitting top 10 lists for comments by developers every 2 weeks. As of right now, there is no list for tradeskilling (and I believe none for PvP.) I was thinking about compiling a list of issues to submit on, in hopes of getting some more specific and frequent feedback. I sent on the first list of issues (before the top 10 lists were being done) that comprised the Fan Fair update, 12 weeks later (thread is on the second page or so. Reposted below to start the discussion.) I had a discussion with Ky about creating the list, and she thought it was a good idea, as we have some very valid concerns.

Anyway, do y'all think this is a good idea? If so, what issues would you like to see some feedback on? some on the Fan Fair update may not be in our Top 10 ATM, but could be replacements as others are resolved.

[Nolrog]

This is a reposting of the Fan Fair list, with a tad bit of reordering (I combined bag tokens for addional bags, and tokes showing stats into one.) There are 14 on the list ATM. We need to remove 4 of them at least (so the top 10 list has 10 on it of course.) If there is an item you'd like to have replaced with something more urgent, we can do that. I will be submitting the list on to Ky by Friday this week, so time is of the essence. Thanks for all your help. I have a few more to add to the list, like the Necro spell Circle of Bones not combining properly. I'll add them ASAP (gotta head to a meeting with my boss right now.)

1) Velium weapon to Velium ore conversions
This was one of the items listed as "likely." It is not yet live, as far as anyone can tell.
Yes, this is something we can do -- It's going to take some time to evaluate the conversions to make sure that we don't create any more plat-macro exploits.

2) Making quest recipes learnable
Maddoc asked for a list of quest recipes that have secondary uses and are made often. To my knowledge, no such list was compiled; only Enchanted Velium Bits was mentioned. Does anyone know of such a list?
According to Maddoc, no list has ever been compiled or given to him, so he's not done much on this. I suggest that we compile a list, and I'll forward it on.

3) Bag tokens:
3A) Showing bag stats
Another idea the devs seemed to like; they noted it was on the list of things to do.
This is something that's not horribly difficult to do, just time consuming.
Additional

3B)
Additional Tokes for bats.
Easy enough to do, especially with the compiled list. This will be one of the few items most likely to get done first, since it's not going to take a *ton* of time to do.

4) Rotating stock on vendors
Tanker said it wouldn't be too hard to code vendors to erase the oldest item sold to them, rather than the newest.
Your humble correspondent does not have an update on this specific issue.

5) Spiderling silk drop rate review
Maddoc said he would review spiderling silk drop rates, particularly in Everfrost. Based on data from EQEcon going back two months (the longest they show), the volume of available silk in the bazaar has dropped significantly, while average prices have either held steady or risen. This has led to a direct rise in the cost to skill up smithing, either in platinum paid in the bazaar or time to farm the silk. People consistently post that drop rates have decreased; almost none post that they have increased or held steady -- though this, of course, is subject to a number of personal biases. The only true resolution is a review of the drop rates from actual server logs. (The EQEcon data I quoted is based on my own server, plus a few other servers I chose at random. I couldn't figure out how to make it show summary data for all servers combined.)
Your humble correspondent does not have an update on this specific issue.

6) Disparity in component requirements between Plate and Chain/Leather for PoP armors
The devs agreed that there is no in-game or game balance reasons for plate armor to require so much more by way of tempers and bricks than chain or leather. I posted a detailed analysis and proposal on my site here and linked it at this EQTraders thread and this EQLive thread for discussion.
Very time consuming to evaluate -- I'd like to do it, but it's not on the radar for the next few months at least.

7) Excessively low drop rates for PoP temper components
On a similar note, the drop rate for temper components (used for plate, chain, and leather armors) compared to saps for silk armor appear severely out of balance. As Chenier noted in the EQTraders thread linked above, it's all but impossible for even an elemental guild to gather enough supplies to make a reasonable number of plate, chain, and leather armor pieces. The general consensus appears to be that the drop rates on temper components should be raised, though to my knowledge no one has posted an analysis proposing a new rate. To pull a number out of thin air, I would say the rates need to be doubled or tripled, but again, I just made that up.
Very time consuming to evaluate -- I'd like to do it, but it's not on the radar for the next few months at least.

8) Cultural armor review
The devs indicated that they would be willing to review and (if need be) overhaul cultural armors, but they noted that this would take lots of time.
Very time consuming to evaluate -- I'd like to do it, but it's not on the radar for the next few months at least.

9) Balancing the Grand Robe / Grand Tunic / Phylactery quest for melees
Maddoc said he would look at adding an alternate reward for melees who wish to do this quest, since they cannot use the Grand Robe/Tunic. Discussions included either adding a new reward for melees or making the Token of Service tradable.
This is probably something that's very easy to do, and again one of the easiest things to do which will get done before any of the others.

10) Nitram Anizok's plight
Tinkerers are concerned about the ability to get to Nitram in Innovation, as he is the only vendor for certain non-stacking tinkering supplies. The problem is due to both see-invis mobs along the path to reach him, and the fact that he is also used for a quest (Xanamech). Thanks to Sanna for pointing out this thread.
Haven't had a chance to look at this -- Moving him is easy, checking to see if the quest or combines he's needed for will now be trivial because of the move is a little more difficult.

11) Portable or multi-user tradeskill containers
The developers said they would look into adding additional portable tradeskill containers, possibly as collapsible items. Tanker also mentioned the possibility of allowing multiple people to use stationary containers (like forges or brew barrels) at once.
Your humble correspondent does not have an update on this specific issue.

12) Mid-to-high tailoring bridge recipes
Maddoc mentioned that he would consider new recipes to bridge the gap between 190 and 240 in tailoring, but most likely that would be part of a future expansion.
Your humble correspondent does not have an update on this specific issue.

13) Tradeskill Super-trophies
The discussion of a super-trophy you can only obtain at 1750 skill or after having all seven normal trophies is still a hot topic for discussion here.
This is likely to be done, but not sure when -- Possibly a future expansion feature.

14) Expanding Jewelcrafting Mastery to other skills and classes
Rytan and Maddoc both agreed to consider opening up JCM to other classes, or adding masteries for other tradeskills, or both. Discussion on this site broke down after a while into enchanter-class bashing, so I won't link the thread.
Possible AA for an expansion.

EDIT: Added 15-19.
EDIT: Added 20 to round out the list.

15) Changes to the tradeskill UI
OK, these are some things I've noticed and decided would be nice to have included as part of the Tradeskill UI for sake of less moving the mouse all over to get things done.

Add a destroy button on the TS UI. Most people mass skilling (pottery for example) will simply destroy or drop the items resulting from certain combines. Add a destroy button so we don't litter Norrath and have to work like dogs to click destroy My actual beef here is the annoyance of it switching active windows in the interface when I click destroy, then having to click the other window, and click the inventory window... repeat until nausea occurrs.

Stack of items in your inventory are represented with a small number ranging from 1-20 in one of the lower corners. In the UI, add a *total* number to the items listed in the same manner as inventory stacks, so that we know when making fish rolls that we have exactly 102 bat wings left, instead of having toopen every bag we have and count the total number of bat wings. Many tradeskillers budget items for a series of combines that need the same item in each, thus knowing how many we have left will help this budgeting process.

This one is more related towards game code than the UI suggestions. Make tradeskill messages and text go into a separate log file than the rest of EQ's clutter. Many people like to parse the tradeskill runs and results to see exactly how many combines were done, how many per skillup, the fail to success ratio, wether the skillup was on a fail or success...etc etc.

16) Necromancer research: Servent of Bones
According to many posts on EQTC (thread link: http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?t=16141), the Necro level 56 pet spell Servant of Bones, listed as researchable in a book called "Fecae's Animation" purchasable off Alviarik in Gunthak, does not combine.

The recipe, as listed in the in-game book, is:

Words of Apparition, Words of Revenant, Words of Tenancy, A Piece of Parchment, A Quill

17) Ghoul of Takish-Iz broken, very frustrating!
I have killed the Ghoul of Takish-Iz more than 30 times in the last 2 months - he is supposed to drop the last piece I need for the phylactery quest - the spiritual anchor. I know for a fact as recently as late April/early May he was still dropping the anchor. By all accounts the Anchor is a 1/4 to 1/5 drop so the odds of me not getting one in 30 kills are bordering on impossible .... in an ongoing discussion on EQtraders, if you factor in two other player's experiences in the last month we have killed the Ghoul 41 times with 0 drops.

The amount of time I have spent on this quest now vastly exceeds the amount of time it took me to get my epic or do anything else ever in this game - hundreds of hours, at least a hundred just on the ghoul..... somethin' ain't right about that.

Please look into this SoE ..... please, please....

18) Tradeskill recipes with missing ingredients
There are a number of recipes in the game that seem to be missing ingredients to make them. Some have come to light with the new tradeskill UI
Fizzle Pop (missing aerated mineral water)
Onyx Encrusted Urn (missing urn sketch {for several years})
Othmir Ocean Mead (missing grey algae, possible combination of other algae's in a mixing bowl? *shrug* as far as I know we haven't tried to see if that's a subcombine yet, so that one might actually exist in game with no lore to find out the recipe or help us search, and since people are burned out on searching since lewena's...)
Karana's Heartfruit Salad (missing Speckled Pine Fruit and Palm Leaf)
Unfired Gnollish Protection Deity (missing sketch of brell serillis)
Unfired Gnollish War Diety (missing sketch of rallos zek)
Vah Shir Shapped Cookies (missing the cookie cutter, or the pattern/sketch to make it)
Grimling Shapped Cookies (missing the cookie cutter, or the pattern/sketch to make it)
Shissar Shapped Cookies (missing the cookie cutter, or the pattern/sketch to make it)
Sonic Wolf Shapped Cookies (missing the cookie cutter or the pattern/sketch to make it)

These are all recipes that are shown in the new UI that nobody has been able to locate the items to actually combine in game. I'll add more as/if I come across them.

19) Poison Mastery AA Bugged
Howdy. Can you ask one of the guru's to look into the poison mastery AA. People are reporting that buying the AA will reduce your success rate, not increase it. If I recall correctly, the JCM AA had a similar problem in the past. This also may be affecting the Alchemy Mastery AA.

20) Foraging Filter
I am a 200 forager and have my forage hotkey tied to my forward movement arrow so that I pretty much automatically forage without thinking about it. The problem is that it is quite annoying to constantly forage stuff that I don't want and then I have to take the time to either drop it or destroy it. I was even killed once when I tried to zone to escape death but just before clicking on the zone, I foraged a no-drop item when my inventory was full and died before I could destroy the item and zone.

Therefore, what I would like to see is a foraging filter. And it could possibly work something like this: When you enter a zone for the first time, your foraging filter for that zone is empty. The first time you forage an item in that zone, that item is permanently added to your foraging filter for that zone. Once an item is on your filter for that zone, you can put a check in the box next to that item if you don't want to forage it. Once checked, you will never forage that item in that zone until you uncheck it.

[Thorvari]

For Nitram Anizok's plight, I would think a much easier solution would be to have a new vendor created that has the same inventory as Nitram. This would require no balancing or script changes, and therefore would be doable by a designer, not a programmer.

***Proposed Storyline***
Tramin Anizok (Nitram's cousin) has recently set up an import/export business in Abysmal Sea, importing parts from his cousin in the Planes. He sells all of the parts needed for the Anizok family recipes, although at a slight markup due to the dangers of exporting the raw materials.

(New vendor named Tramin Anizok, with the same inventory as Nitram Anizok in PoI. To make it interesting you could up his Greed modifier to make the items slighty more expensive if you buy from him, but cheaper if you brave PoI to buy from his cousin)

[ancarett]

1) Velium weapon to Velium ore conversions
Yes, this would really be nice to see live!

2) Making quest recipes learnable
No. If nothing beyond EVBs has been put forward, I'd drop this off the top 10.

3) Bag tokens:
Yes. Haven't we been compiling a list of these? Definitely makes the top 10!

4) Rotating stock on vendors
Yes. Definitely for the top 10!

5) Spiderling silk drop rate review
Yes, major issue. I level up armies of twinks hunting spiderlings almost exclusively and I still am lucky to get a few stacks of spiderling silks before said twinks are level ten. Definitely a top 10 issue!

6) Disparity in component requirements between Plate and Chain/Leather for PoP armors
No, I would like to see this kept on the radar, but because of the length of time involved in getting this live, maybe it should be reserved for a future top 10 list? Especially because of #7.

7) Excessively low drop rates for PoP temper components
No, #6 and #7 seem to be interdependent -- can we start to do some data collection ourselves so we can put these together on the top 10 list when we have a bit of data?

8) Cultural armor review
No. Like #6 and #7, this one is big, almost too big to push forward. I'm sure they would like to see some specific lists of what cultural we're talking about and what non-cultural items we're talking about competing against.

9) Balancing the Grand Robe / Grand Tunic / Phylactery quest for melees
Yes, This is so easy to do, I would like to see this on the list.

10) Nitram Anizok's plight
Yes. Once again, ought to be a quick and easy fix. I like Thorvani's suggestion, though it would be nice to have the PoI tinkerer merchant separated from the Xanamech quest (our guild regularly takes Xanamech down and I feel guilty worrying about all the tinkerers who are trying to buy stuff on a Wednesday evening).

11) Portable or multi-user tradeskill containers
Yes, I would like to see this on the list, especially the multi-use containers. That would ease a lot of the frustration, even if portable containers are a ways off on the development timeline.

12) Mid-to-high tailoring bridge recipes
Yes, I think it would be a good idea to get them working on this. I know I'm not the only one tired of seeing tonnes of CSRs on NPC merchants and flooding the bazaar!

13) Tradeskill Super-trophies
Yes, I suppose, but, meh. It would be nice but it's not pressing. We can save that for our next top 10 list just as easily as put it forward, but it will probably take such a terribly long time to get put into place, people might like to see it started now.

14) Expanding Jewelcrafting Mastery to other skills and classes
Yes, I would love to see these as AAs for OoW, but I suppose I'm dreaming. It would be nice to at least put this forward!

[Aryse Andenter]

I am conflicted on the foraging filter issue. Right now the only thing stopping (or at least causing inconvenience to) foraging macroquest users is that their inventory gets full or stuff they don't want. But then, I think that in some ways I just don't care how people get the foraged items they do, since there are just not enough going around on my server at all and more is more, whether it be through a hacking program or not.

Maybe change the foraging point to be something more like looking into rare forages, the zones they are in, who can forage... something needs to be fixed in foraging when vegetables are selling at 40-50pp each and the forages for my cultural tailoring have not been available in the bazaar or trade in 3 months on my server.

There has been a lot of discussion lately about foraging, maybe a more encompasing point would be better than #20, or maybe it should be dropped from the list until the discussions turn up some more productive suggestions - really, an AA forage ability deserves to be on the list at least as much as a foraging filter for consideration.

[Ambrya]

6) Disparity in component requirements between Plate and Chain/Leather for PoP armors
The devs agreed that there is no in-game or game balance reasons for plate armor to require so much more by way of tempers and bricks than chain or leather. I posted a detailed analysis and proposal on my site here and linked it at this EQTraders thread and this EQLive thread for discussion.
Very time consuming to evaluate -- I'd like to do it, but it's not on the radar for the next few months at least.

7) Excessively low drop rates for PoP temper components
On a similar note, the drop rate for temper components (used for plate, chain, and leather armors) compared to saps for silk armor appear severely out of balance. As Chenier noted in the EQTraders thread linked above, it's all but impossible for even an elemental guild to gather enough supplies to make a reasonable number of plate, chain, and leather armor pieces. The general consensus appears to be that the drop rates on temper components should be raised, though to my knowledge no one has posted an analysis proposing a new rate. To pull a number out of thin air, I would say the rates need to be doubled or tripled, but again, I just made that up.
Very time consuming to evaluate -- I'd like to do it, but it's not on the radar for the next few months at least.

I think you could easily combine these two, since we are shooting for a top 10 list, right?

8) Cultural armor review
The devs indicated that they would be willing to review and (if need be) overhaul cultural armors, but they noted that this would take lots of time.
Very time consuming to evaluate -- I'd like to do it, but it's not on the radar for the next few months at least.

what exactly are we reviewing? The stats? The fact that you can't go any higher on cultural armor than the 220s for skillups unless you are willing to spend a fortune in blue diamonds (of which there will NEVER be enough, anywhere.) I agree these things need some looking into, but trust me, as a ranger whose Top 10 list ended up getting 50% rejected, in large part due to the fact that some of the items weren't terribly clear on what we wanted, I have learned the value of specificity.

15) Changes to the tradeskill UI
OK, these are some things I've noticed and decided would be nice to have included as part of the Tradeskill UI for sake of less moving the mouse all over to get things done.

Add a destroy button on the TS UI. Most people mass skilling (pottery for example) will simply destroy or drop the items resulting from certain combines. Add a destroy button so we don't litter Norrath and have to work like dogs to click destroy My actual beef here is the annoyance of it switching active windows in the interface when I click destroy, then having to click the other window, and click the inventory window... repeat until nausea occurrs.

Stack of items in your inventory are represented with a small number ranging from 1-20 in one of the lower corners. In the UI, add a *total* number to the items listed in the same manner as inventory stacks, so that we know when making fish rolls that we have exactly 102 bat wings left, instead of having toopen every bag we have and count the total number of bat wings. Many tradeskillers budget items for a series of combines that need the same item in each, thus knowing how many we have left will help this budgeting process.

This one is more related towards game code than the UI suggestions. Make tradeskill messages and text go into a separate log file than the rest of EQ's clutter. Many people like to parse the tradeskill runs and results to see exactly how many combines were done, how many per skillup, the fail to success ratio, wether the skillup was on a fail or success...etc etc.

Ok, so this isn't really a tradeskill UI suggestion, nor even specifically a tradeskill suggestion. However, I think it probably does effect tradeskillers perhaps more than any other group. There are three buttons, or at least commands, I would like to see made available, all along the same lines:

Inventory Window: DESTROY ALL (of this item.) For non-stacking items, or for multiple stacks of the same item, that we simply need to get rid of, I would like to be able to destroy them all rather than dragging them to the destroy button one at a time.

Bank Window: BANK ALL (of this item.) Same principle. The Auto-Bank thing is nice, but I would really like to be able to move multiple non-stacking items or multiple stacks of items into the bank without having to drag each one. If we wanted to get really funky, we could ask for a RETRIEVE ALL ability, where we could transfer all of a certain item from the bank into our inventory.

NPC Merchant Window: SELL ALL (of this item.) Again, same thing. The ability to sell all of a non-stacking or multiple stacks of a single item with a single click. IMO, the dragging back and forth does nothing to enhance my game-play experience. I want to sell the buggers and get back to playing.


Ok, this will probably be a controversial suggestion, but there have been a lot of requests for a mass-combine ability for certain items at EQLive, so I think we should perhaps make it a part of our list. Personally, I think it should be reserved only for items that can be made with vendor-bought components that are no-fail or below 20 trivial (so silk threads and silk swatches are out because they aren't vendor-bought, and medium-quality sheet metal is also out, because the trivial is too high.)

The items I am mainly thinking of are celestial essence and metal bits. I am sure there are others that would meet the criteria too. Though I am sure there would be a way to include a "mass combine" button on the UI and expand the theory to items like silks, etc, if we keep it limited to vendor-bought items, them we can sell the idea to the Devs with the virtue of simplicity. It would be EXTREMELY simple for them to implement a mass-combine ability for a few very trivial, repetitive combines. I will use celestial essence and metal bits as an example:

Purchase from the vendor:
1 Gallon of Celestial Solvent (stackable, 10x the price of a single celestial solvent)
1 Tub of The Scent of Marr (stackable, 10x the price of regular Scent of Marr)
RESULT: Celestial Essence (yield 10)

Purchase from the vendor:
1 Pile of Ore Pieces (stackable, 10x the price of Small Piece of Ore)
1 2-Quart Jug of Water (stackable, 5x the price of a Water Flask, and non-drinkable or drinkable at the same rate as regular water flasks, so it doesn't knock the bottom out of the beverage market)
RESULT: Metal Bits (yield 5)

The reason this would be so easy for the Devs is because they would simply have to add 2 new items to the appropriate vendors and a single recipe to the recipe database. If we went the route of a Mass Combine button that could be used for silks, etc, things would get much more complex.

Ok, I think I'm done. I have one other suggestion, but I suspect that would be so unpopular that I would get my head ripped off for throwing it out there.

Thanks for compiling this list, Nolrog.

[Lickity]

a) Velium weapon to Velium ore conversions
Unneccesary. Sure this would be a convienence, but honestly, the Velium Ore drops so readily, that if this is one of our "top 10 plight" it isn't that big of a deal.
b) Making quest recipes learnable
Again, 1 recipe that really matters, EVBs, not something to occupy our issues with.

c) Bag tokens:
this is definately something that should be looked into, both from the stat view and the "more variety" view.

d) Rotating stock on vendors
This would be neat.

e) Spiderling silk drop rate review
/agree. this is broken, fix it.

f) Disparity in component requirements between Plate and Chain/Leather for PoP armors
This is a huge issue,as planar smithing is one of the few areas where big money can still be made in tradeskilling.

g) Excessively low drop rates for PoP temper components
I don't think they are that low, you just have to kill the right mobs, increasing these further would destroy the market.

h) Cultural armor review
As a froglok who was promised robes and smithing, I would like to see at least one of them, as I have a forge for cultural work, but only cobwebs in it.

9) Balancing the Grand Robe / Grand Tunic / Phylactery quest for melees
Is this really a "tradeskill" issue, or should a seperate "class" be made. Maybe "Questers," the Oracle quest is only superficially a tradeskill quest.

10) Nitram Anizok's plight
While I don't tinker, this does not seem like a very fair situation for them. Probably an issue that should be on the docket.

11) Portable or multi-user tradeskill containers
!!!!!! One of the biggest problems right here!

12) Mid-to-high tailoring bridge recipes
I am torn on this one, this provides a roadblock for people doing AG, while also helping maintain the limited tradeskilling market out there. Perhaps added a path that is equal in level to using cultural LoY tailoring that all can use to help balance tailoring, without cheapening it.

13) Tradeskill Super-trophies
I would put this as a #1 priority, something that gives non-EP tradeskillers a reason to do it, while also being of value to those that are in the EPs+.

14) Expanding Jewelcrafting Mastery to other skills and classes
Is the option of removing this altogether and refunding the points an option?

15) Changes to the tradeskill UI
I'd rather see changes to function in tradeskills, than superficial changes to the UI.

16) Necromancer research: Servent of Bones
This is more of an issue that the necromancers should be having than the entire tradeskill community.

17) Ghoul of Takish-Iz broken, very frustrating!
Broken quests suck. But this should go under "fixing quests" not attributing this to tradeskillers.

18) Tradeskill recipes with missing ingredients
This should be a given, if its broke, fix it

19) Poison Mastery AA Bugged
Make the rogues beg for this, this is a rogue isse and a rogue AA issue.

20) Foraging Filter
I don't see a way of doing this that wouldn't encourage exploiting and/or AFK Foraging. The way it works gives an aspect of "role-playing" to it. Maybe it should be left that way just for the insurance.

[Ambrya]

I am conflicted on the foraging filter issue. Right now the only thing stopping (or at least causing inconvenience to) foraging macroquest users is that their inventory gets full or stuff they don't want. But then, I think that in some ways I just don't care how people get the foraged items they do, since there are just not enough going around on my server at all and more is more, whether it be through a hacking program or not.

Actually, it won't make a bit of difference.

People who use mouse-movement recorded macros have ways of ensuring they keep the stuff they want (mainly by putting "seed" items in their inventory, so that if they use auto-inventory, the item they want to keep will stack with the other items already there, and if they dont want to keep it, it will just fall into the first available space, where they can simply pick it up and destroy it.)

People who use script-based macros have ways to identify what they have foraged and read from the log, and destroy anything that isn't in a realm of "approved" items.

Adding a forage filter isn't going to change the way these scumbags function in the slightest. They are still gonna end up screwing us over. But it will keep me from foraging 50 bazillion stacks of roots when all I want is vegetables and plains pebbles when I want tea leaves as I farm spider silks.

So as a non-bot using forager, I am ALL FOR THIS suggestion.

an AA forage ability deserves to be on the list at least as much as a foraging filter for consideration.

Ugh, NOOO!

Sorry, you have just hit a sore spot with me. As a ranger, I have been witnessing pretty much all my abilities being farmed out piecemeal to other classes in recent history. Forgive me for at least wanting to keep one thing sacred to myself.

There is a role-play logic to rangers and druids and woodelves being able to forage. Rangers and Druids are masters of the outdoors. We SHOULD be able to locate any given item. Woodelves of other classes are also in tune with the outdoors and it makes sense that they would have this ability in a more limited form. I really don't know the logic behind Iksar being able to forage; personally, I think it should be Vah Shir who have this ability (as I watch my cat picking things off the floor and taking a taste.)

I don't think that just anyone should be able to have this ability. One, it would really screw over the foraged-items market. In the early days, I couldn't have bought my spells if I hadn't been able to sell foraged items in the bazaar.

Two, it doesn't make as much roleplaying sense. Can you really see a high-elf or erudite out scrounging under trees and bushes for items?

Three, it's ok for some classes and races to have unique abilities. If everyone could do the same thing as everyone else, it would defeat the purpose of multi-player game. I can't enchant my own metals for jewelcraft. I can't brew my own poisons and apply them to my arrows. I can't imbue my own stones. I can't tinker my own stalking probes. I can't mix up my own gate potions. Why should everyone else be able to do what I can do when I can't do what they can do? If you want to open one classes special abilities up to everyone, then you need to open up everyone else's special abilities as well. And where does that end?

I will make one concession: I see a certain role-playing logic to shaman being able to forage. Historically, shaman of tribal cultures were about to go out and scrounge up the herbs and roots they used for their potions. I would recommend giving shaman the ability to forage, capped at 50 or 100.

Otherwise, I am firmly against this idea of everyone being able to buy the ability to forage. I see it as a slippery slope that leads to noplace good.

[Nolrog]

16) Necromancer research: Servent of Bones
This is more of an issue that the necromancers should be having than the entire tradeskill community.

19) Poison Mastery AA Bugged
Make the rogues beg for this, this is a rogue isse and a rogue AA issue.

20) Foraging Filter
I don't see a way of doing this that wouldn't encourage exploiting and/or AFK Foraging. The way it works gives an aspect of "role-playing" to it. Maybe it should be left that way just for the insurance.

On 16 and 18, I am trying to collect issues on all trades, even if they are restricted in some way. I am equal opportunity in that way. If we feel they don't belong on the top 10, that's fine, but they are still issues, and they do relate to tradeskills.

For the foraging filter, I was thinking something like this. You forage an item, and if it's one of your 'no forage' items, the system automatically destroys it, and the timer starts as if you just foraged something. It would be very unblanacing if you could select exactly what you wanted to forage, so a change like that is not suggested. Anyway, I wanted to round out the number to 20, so I added this one.

[Akishka]

My Top 10 Candidates I would vote for:

1) Velium weapon to Velium ore conversions
It may be plentiful but everywhere I go is heavily camped. Another route to obtain this would be great.

3) Bag tokens
I've always thought the stats should be shown on the tokens, people should know what they are buying. Also, getting the more current bags available in token form would help open up the market for them.

4) Rotating stock on vendors
Sooooo sweet

5) Spiderling silk drop rate review
This is something a lot of people have been having problems with. For sheer amount of people its bothering, it should be fixed.

10) Nitram Anizok's plight
I'm not a tinkerer either but I love the cousin item posted above! Just doesn't seem fair that you have to go to that much trouble to reach your merchant, on top of everything else.

11) Portable or multi-user tradeskill containers
Now, I never have really had a big problem with a line for tradeskill containers but if its bothering others, its certainly fixable without destroying any balance. The portable would be very helpful as well.

12) Mid-to-high tailoring bridge recipes
I'm divided on this one. Some bridge recipes would be nice but we certainly don't want to make it too easy. Some tradeskills should take a lot of effort to GM.

14) Expanding Jewelcrafting Mastery to other skills and classes
Its only fair. At the very least, JM should be available to other players since it is in the game already.

18) Tradeskill recipes with missing ingredients
Yep, I agree, if its broken we need to fix it.

19) Poison Mastery AA Bugged
Yes its a rogue only issue but several of the items on the list is specific only to some. Its also a tradeskill issue and, as such, I think that we should see about getting it looked into as it would be a serious issue for a poison maker.

Some items I absolutely am against:

13) Tradeskill Super-trophies
I feel like the game is constantly pushing you to become bigger and better. I enjoy tradeskills because this is actually people doing things for the love of doing it, not as a super goal oriented push. Its a way for some of us have to enjoy a little fishing or some nice embroidery instead of focusing on that next dragon slaying. Make a super trophy and all of the sudden it is the next dragon and you are being prodded to hurry up and go vanquish it already! There will be raids on Karana so that their MT can get that super new range item..... People everywhere will be chained to the forges until they ding 250 on smithing....
I could see being able to combine all the trophies into something a little flashier, for the brag value, but not with better stats.

20) Foraging Filter
To me, this is just so unnecessary. Come on folks, how often do you get a stack of roots that you need to destroy - once an hour maybe? I know I don't use bookworms or grubs at all and I only have to destroy my stack once every few weeks (yes, I don't play that many hours per day but still). And since you have to be active in the foraging process anyway, its just not that difficult to do.

As for the rest, I either don't know enough or an pretty ambivalent about it.

[Ambrya]

For the foraging filter, I was thinking something like this. You forage an item, and if it's one of your 'no forage' items, the system automatically destroys it, and the timer starts as if you just foraged something. It would be very unblanacing if you could select exactly what you wanted to forage, so a change like that is not suggested. Anyway, I wanted to round out the number to 20, so I added this one.

I think this is very reasonable. I agree that a foraging filter that enabled you to forage what you want every time all the time is extremely unbalancing. Frankly, until someone mentioned it, I never even considered it. I always envisioned something much like what you suggested...more a way to auto-destroy the things you DON'T want than a way to guarantee you always get what you DO want. Just being able to save myself the inconvenience of having to go through my packs and destroy the crap I don't need would make it all worth it.

[Ambrya]

My Top 10 Candidates I would vote for:

1) Velium weapon to Velium ore conversions
It may be plentiful but everywhere I go is heavily camped. Another route to obtain this would be great.

That is sorta the way I am thinking.

Let's say I am doing a load of arctic wyvern armor for tailoring skillups. I have 200 arctic wyvern hides. It takes 2 small pieces of velium to make a velium bit. It takes 3 velium bits to make 2 velium studs. It takes 1 brick of velium to make 2 pieces. That means I need 1.5 bricks of velium (or 3 small pieces of velium) per velium stud. Which means I need 300 bricks of velium (30 bags full...that's more than I can hold in my inventory and in my bank) to break down into 600 small pieces in order to make 200 studs.

That is a HECK of a lot of farming in Crystal Caverns, considering it takes at least two passes through the entire upper and lower orc camp to get just a single bag of bricks. That means it would take 600 passes through both upper and lower orcs. If you only get a single camp, that's 1200 passes. At (I assume) 20 minutes per spawn cycle, that's 400 hours of farming. For what will amount to about 10 skillups if you get a rate of 1 skillup per stack of hides.

I agree that there should be a considerable time and effort sink involved in skilling up the harder, non-vendor bought tradeskills, such as tailoring and smithing. I didn't complain when I spent two weeks farming swirling shadows and substances to get my smithing up (ok, well, I did complain, but I still understood that what I was doing was the right and necessary way to go about it.)

However...because of the aforementioned lack of ways to skillup tailoring from 190 to 250, that means, if I skilled up SOLELY using arctic wyvern armor to GM tailoring, and I got 1 skillup per stack of hides, that would mean I would need to spend 2400 hours, or 100 days, farming just the velium to GM tailoring. That doesn't include the time spent farming the hides and fishing the cod.

That does seem, to me, a smidge excessive. Especially since the 1 skillup per stack is an extremely optimistic figure. Last week I did 400 ceremonial solstice robe combines with 195 WIS (in essence, 20 stacks) and got 9 skillups.

But let's say we can convert velium weapons to velium ore, and let's say the conversion is pretty much on the same scale as Fine Steel weapons --> HQ Ore. The average weapon would yield about 1 brick and 1 small piece per conversion. That's 1 velium stud per conversion. 200 weapons vs. 300 bricks. And weapons drop more plentifully--Great Divide, Kael, and even off the orcs in Crystal Caverns. So, let's say I go kill orcs in CC and for every 2 bricks of velium, I get 1 velium weapon. I have just cut my farming time down from 400 hours to about 250 hours. And since I won't be monopolizing the orc camp for as many hours because I will be meeting my goal quicker, it won't be as difficult to find a space to farm some velium. The price of velium in the bazaar, which has skyrocketed to over that of acrylia since people discovered the EVB skillup route, will finally get down to something reasonable.

In short, there is still a significant time sink to tailoring and smithing, but its not as unreasonable as it has been on the velium front. AND there is still a slight plat-sink involved, as the conversion process should require coldain velium temper.

At any rate, I think this is a very necessary addition to the game. And just nerfing the NPC buyback rate of velium bricks and pieces should pretty much solve the problem of plat-macroing exploits. At long as no one makes more than the 7pp they would make selling the weap itself to an NPC merchant, we should be fine.

[Ambrya]

My Top 10 Candidates I would vote for:
13) Tradeskill Super-trophies
I feel like the game is constantly pushing you to become bigger and better. I enjoy tradeskills because this is actually people doing things for the love of doing it, not as a super goal oriented push. Its a way for some of us have to enjoy a little fishing or some nice embroidery instead of focusing on that next dragon slaying. Make a super trophy and all of the sudden it is the next dragon and you are being prodded to hurry up and go vanquish it already! There will be raids on Karana so that their MT can get that super new range item..... People everywhere will be chained to the forges until they ding 250 on smithing....
I could see being able to combine all the trophies into something a little flashier, for the brag value, but not with better stats.

See, brag value is what I think most of us want the Super-Trophy for. For people who do tradeskills simply for the ubah-quest items like the shawl and signet, they have their rewards. But those of us who carry all 7 (or more!) tradeskills to 250, we need some sort of recognition.

However, I don't think adding SOME stats beyond what the current tradeskill trophies offer is out of line. First of all, the current tradeskill trophies SHOULD have a DEX stat, since that is the alternative stat for TWO tradeskills. And the tradeskill super-trophy SHOULD have something beyond what the current trophies have, or else, really, it's not worth the cost of converting 7 of our current trophies, at least 3 of which we can equip for stat boosts at any given time.

Bottom line: we've earned it. Why not make it worth our while?

[Ambrya]

Ok, someone ban me from posting in this thread, lol...I just have too much to say here!

I have been debating with myself all afternoon whether to post this idea. On one hand, I know some people won't like it for a variety of reasons, chief of which will be the "When I was a young'un, I walked 40 miles through 5 feet of snow uphill both ways to get to school..." factor.

On the other hand, it's something I really find to be a needful thing.

Keep in mind, I am posting this AFTER having GMed all tradeskills but tailoring, and tailoring is already most of the way there. I am not looking for a "shortcut" to make things easy on myself. I am looking back on the time I have spent tradeskilling and thinking, "you know, there really should be a better way..."

Here's the premise: I don't think lvl 65 players should be spending dozens, if not hundreds, of hours killing green mobs that lowbie players could be killing for xp just to collect their tradeskill stuff.

Someone a while back posted a bit of a rant about farming on the smithing board. Basically, the logic was that SOE doesn't want us farming. They want us out there "experiencing content." But they have structured the tradeskill system in such a way that the ONLY viable way to GM our non-vendor bought tradeskills is to farm. Because let's face it, as a lvl 65 player, your opportunities to collect enough spider silks to make Wu's armor (much less ceremonial solstice robes!) is going to be severely limited. There is really no viable way to "experience content" and get our tradeskills up once we get into the endgame without farming. The system just isn't structured that way.

But, we don't have many options, unfortunately. Sure, they could include spiders and spiderlings that you could kill at lvl 65 for experience, but you would need a group to kill them, and really, who wants to spend their grouping time killing jumped-up newbie mobs? Or SOE could implement something like what is on the Firiona Vie server, where you simply don't get loot off greenie mobs. But that would mean, if you don't do all your farming while you are of a level to get experience off the mobs, you have to buy your stuff in the bazaar. Which means plat farming is going to go through the roof, which means the economy is going to start to suck even more.

The other option is to make certain items vendor-purchaseable. I suggested this once before, and iirc, I was accused of just wanting everything handed to me on a silver platter. I don't. I'm willing to work for it. But I want the work I am doing to make sense, and farming mobs 40 levels or more lower than myself just doesn't make a lot of sense to me in the context of what people are supposed to be acheiving in the game.

So, one option is that there be certain NPCs (very rare, perhaps 3 or 4 in the entire game, in tradeskill epicenters like Shadowhaven, PoK, and Abysmal) that carry heavily used tradeskill items that drop from mobs, say, level 25 or lower. Spiderling silks, Spider silks, LQ/MQ/HQ skins/hides, mostly old world stuff. Leave the Luclin drops where they are, they are easy to get anyway. Have these mobs refuse to do business with you unless you have performed a certain quest to prove your worthiness. Make the quest fairly time-consuming and dangerous and difficult (but solo-able, because no group or raid will help you for such a thing.) Make these items fairly expensive. Might as well make it a plat-sink while we're at it. We are paying for the convenience, not just the items (sorta like the idea mentioned above with our friend Anizok.) Make the NPC sell to you only in limited quantities (for example, 5 stacks of each item per 24 hour period.)

By this token, people who would spend their time farming, killing mobs that some lowbie could be gettin xp off of, can instead have another route, if they are willing to pay for it in time and effort. And these same people can then spend their time doing what SOE wants them to do, experiencing "content" rather than farming.

I know, I know...a lot of people who have read this absolutely hate this idea. So here's another idea.

Have a small selection of NPCs (again, only 3 or 4 in the entire game) in very hard to find, out of the way places, be "overflow" NPC merchants. How many spiderling and spider silks and the like are lost because people sell them to full NPCs who eat them? Sure, the NPC merchant inventory cycling idea might work, but you still have to go through each and every npc to see if they have the item you need. Have certain items that are "tagged" when they are sold to any NPC, the show up not on that NPC, but on one of these "overflow" NPCs. So a small number of NPC that you have to work to find have all the stock of:

Spiderling Silks
Spider Silks
LQ/MQ/HQ skins/hides
non-vendor-stocked gems like Raw Diamonds/Blue Diamonds
etc

But these NPCs ONLY have as many of these items as have been sold to NPC merchants throughout the game. Which means they can run out, or not have any in stock. But, if someone in the game has sold one of these items to an NPC, instead of it disappearing, or instead of us having to hunt for it, we know where to find it...IF it is available.

Ok, done with the unpopular ideas now. Feel free to hate me if you wish. Just trying to throw something out there.

[Kieroth_whiteleaf]

Regarding Cultural Armor:

Nolrog:

If someone were to compile a list of "should be there" combines to fix race/deity gaps in currently existing lines, and put it in a list which included stats and names for final products, would the devs consider putting it in?

I.E.: My dark elf warrior worships rallos zek. There is currently no imbued she can make and wear (although for some bizarre reason I've been told she can wear human fierce heraldric). If someone were to compile a list with the necessary components, including item numbers (that's the big one I'd guess..) for what the rallos zek armor SHOULD be, would someone put it in?

I've got magelo and I have time.. it wouldn't be that hard to put it all together. At that point the hard work would be creating the new items.

That doesn't help the vah shir, frogloks or half elves any, but it would help a lot of the other class/race groups.

And it would take an item off the list...

SFG