Changes to the Top 10?

[Nolrog]

This Friday is the update date for the top 10 list.

Do we want to change anything? Did DoN bring any issues that we want to include in there (I wouldn't put the problems getting the books yet, because they are being addressed separately.) See Oshran's post on EQ Traders and on the Artisan's Way

Last time around, I added in the item that research has no trophy. I was thinking about adding to that same item (since it's all research related) the fact that although the research hard cap has gone up to 300, there is in effect a soft cap because there are no research recipes that trivial over 227.

Anything else driven by the new cap increases? We had the mid-to-high level tailoring recipes on the list, but it was removed a few updates ago. Is this one to add back and re-emphasize (because of the new level caps.)

Anyhow, if we can have our thoughts together by Thursday, I'll update the list if necessary. A link to the current top 10 list on the Artisan's Way is at the top of this post. Be sure to scroll down to the last post in that thread, so you get the most current version.

[Maevenniia]

Re: Spell Research, not only is there a soft cap, but due to the rarity of the high-end components, they aren't a viable skill-up route.

- Drops for existing spells need to increase...Rune of Zephyr wasn't even IN the game until recently, and seems to be very rare even now....DoN patch broke a few things (ex: eye of zomm), maybe this is broken again? also maybe the other 'rare' drops are not dropping as often as they should?
- we need new recipes, preferably for 60-65 spells (for all caster classes, incl priests and hybrids)...I'd ESPECIALLY like to see recipes for GoD spells (not ancients), because PoP spells are at least attainable through Ethereal and Spectral parchment MQs, but GoD spells are unattainable for many of the EQ population...maybe we can make a special parchment using Taelosian wheet? or clay tablets with Taelosian clay?
- possibility of researching some discipline tomes?...(or maybe this needs to be a new skill for the melees & hybrids?)
-possibility of researching clicky items such as wands with limited charges or one-shot spell scrolls?

[greebmushroome]

bazaar/barter hall requests

Item: the bazaar/barter hall.

- the barter hall is a great idea and new tool; however, anecdotal evidence indicates that it is severely under-used (2-3 trades at a time) since it is split from the bazaar. would it be possible to have /buyer and /trader capabilities in a single zone (even if we couldn't use both at once), so we could use /barter and /bazaar at the same time (to compare prices, if nothing else)?

- further to this, it would be great to be able to be both a buyer and a trader at the same time. there may be issues with having loops between the two (e.g., buying X at 100p and selling it at 120p, or, worse, buying at 100p and selling at 80p); maybe it's okay to let this happen. maybe the players will just have to be vigilant against it.

- the new bazaar and barter hall graphics are beautiful, and the new layout looks cool on the map. the new layout, however, is functionally inferior to the old layout. there are two problems with it -- a distance problem, and a way-finding problem. the distance problem is that it takes right much more time to run from a trader at one end to a trader at the other end. as tradeskillers, we sometimes end up running laps around the bazaar buying up ingredients, and running up and down hallways and through portals gets very tedious when collecting components from many vendors. the way-finding problem is that right-clicking a trader's name is no longer a viable way of locating that trader (finding a path does work... most of the time). the curvy hallways and the split trading areas connected by portals defeat right-clicking a trader's name.

would it be possible to return to a layout with a single trading hall, or possibly two large trading halls connected by a short hallway, or something of the sort, please? a rectilinear layout, as opposed to the current curvy radial-arm-and-portal layout, would be preferable (this, in particular, would make right-clicking a name useable again).

- the barter tool/window. to ease searching, would it be possible to have a function that is "match everything in my inventory with buy lines" or "match everything in my inventory and bank with buy lines"? having a long re-use timer on these functions would probably be fine. currently, i search the barter hall for buy lines by leaving the search box empty and clicking "search" (to see all the buy lines for all buyers). this only works, i suspect, because there are never more than 2-3 buyers up. at some time, it would be necessary to type in every thing i might want to sell to see if anyone's interested in buying. also, another very useful function for buyers would be "compare all my buy lines to the other buy lines" -- the idea here is to show me any competing buy lines so that i can, for instance, adjust the price or quantity.

[Celestya]

Alchemy needs some new recipes other than aug combines for above 200.
Currently the only recipes above 255 are forage only components (and shaman don't get forage). Above 275 there aren't any combines that I'm aware of.
On a related topic, bringing the cost of potions (especially the sell-to-vendor price), more in line with poison making. Spending 70p to make a potion, which sells to a vendor for 9 gold is just horrible! Especially when there are no alternatives, and the Poison makers got their skill to 250 via their GMs for a pittance.

[Verdandi]

What Celestya said

[Melae]

Bazaar/Barter hall

As was mentioned earlier, I agree that the graphics are beautiful and the design looks cool on the map, but again the functionality is bad. I don't know how well this idea would go over, but how about reverting to the old design...? Perhaps make two identical rooms like the old bazaar and seperate them by a wall/door whatever.. it would make things so much easier.

For those of us with low end computers.. Yes, I know upgrade, but thats just not possible for everyone. With the old setup, traders hidden and 0 clip pane, I could zip around the bazaar and get anything I needed. The new graphics, tho they look wonderful, almost cripple me. I can barely move in some places.

Anyway, thats just my 2 cp..

~Mel

[Auricula]

Above 275 there aren't any combines that I'm aware of.

FYI - the new level V potions seem to be trivialing at 275. There are level VI recipes in the database that appear not to have been made yet because they don't have trivials posted. I would guess they trivial higher than 275.

But yeah, kinda silly to give foraging classes easiest access to the Alchemy components when the two skills are mutually exclusive.

[Nolrog]

The bazaar and barter zones are not directly related to tradeskills and skilling up. While we have valid concerns about them, I don't think they should be included in the list of issues. I'd suggest that you send /feedback directly to SOE if you don't like them.

[thrashette]

Item: The Guild Bank is Inadequate for Tradeskills

I'm repeating here most of a post I made over on EQlive. I've made some tradeskill related additions and edited out the non-tradeskill portions.

First, let me say who I am. I am the guild banker for the largest guild on The Rathe. I am also a 1750+ tradeskiller. The abilities given to me by the DoN Guild Bank are laughably inadequate.

Second, let me describe those activities that I engage in and how the DoN Guild Bank might relate to those activities.

- I distribute tradeskilled items to people. The Guild bank has helped with this some, providing that I am able to go there and make changes. However, I am normally raiding and cannot do this. It is FAR easier to just carry items and give them to people at raids where they will see me anyway. Remote access to the bank for item tagging by the Primary Guild Banker is essential to making the bank usable.

- I collect raid drop tradeskill items and unwanted tradeskill items from people. Prior to DoN this was done by people meeting a guild alt in PoK. It took my guild one hour after DoN release to fill up all 20 donation slots. Since then the Donation area has remained nearly full in spite of me emptying it each day. Most of the items have been potions, stat food, and random DoN trade drops. A quantity of perhaps 100 would be usable, and 250 would be more appropriate. Some guild members are telling me that they are afraid to place valuable items in Deposits for fear of losing them to overfill.

- I store droppable items and uncommon tradeskill supplies. I have -5 full alts- at 8*3*10 = 240 slots full of quest and tradeskill items. I limit stock to one stack of anything stackable. I give -all- unessential or trivial loot to guild tribute to keep the level that low. Our guild tribute is maxed at 500,000 and stays very close to that level. I sell many items in the bazaar and to vendors at cut rates just to be rid of them. A guild bank in the current form that has less than two thousand standard inventory slots is quite simply inadequate. Four thousand standard slots would approach real utility, although by deep stacking Sony could reduce this size some. What I have resorted to doing is placing only the best items in the Guild Bank, hoping that the shiny nature will encourage members to make withdrawals.

- I disburse uncommon tradeskill materials. These items need to be distributable by tradeskill level as well as name. I want those Obsidianwood Saps to go only to 250+ tailors. I want those Flowing Rainbow Tempers only to go to 250+ smiths.

- I deal with LORE items. The LORE Problem is the biggest logistic hassle of all--finding an alt who doesn't have an Ornate Boot Mold yet can take some time. The guild vault should handle storage of LORE items and disbursement of them just like other items. Of course, the LORE limits should apply to people removing items from the Bank.

- I keep useful stackables. Many of these are tradeskill components for one-offs used in quests. The stack limit of 20 is the second biggest problem in the current implementation. When my guild needs Raw Diamonds to do a quest, we need 280 of them, not 20. Keeping a reasonable stock of expensive stackables is a Basic Guild Need. I hoped that the Guild Bank would assist this storage problem, but alas, it is no help at all.

- I make Guild Loans. Two of the more common loans are for skillups or for Aid Grimel. Being able to tag platinum for members and accept it from them is another area where the Guild Bank should shine. I have millions of platinum on my alts and hundreds of thousands out in loans, with no accountability or mechanism except personal trust behind it all. Leaving platinum trading out was nearly irresponsible.

- I provide consumable supplies. Coffins, reagent gems, potions, and stat food are all consumables that a large guild uses in vast quantity to operate. I should be able to store at a minumum 200 pieces of each, tagged for use by class or name, without significantly impacting the guild bank space. Right now, I have half a dozen guild members on The Road To 300 inundating me with Misty Thicket Picnics and Mana Potions. One solution would be for items to be stacked much deeper than 20, as the -number- of consumables is fairly small but the -consumption rate- is high. Also, consumable single items like potions must stack to get relief.

- I provide components. We used to keep on a 24/7 trader common components for all armor quests that people can buy and get reminbursed. Now I've got stacks of metal, silks, and gems occuping my Guild Vault. This takes a lot of space, because we have hundreds of members who have nearly 1000 alts at different levels. Again, the ability to stack deeply is essential to management of these items.

- I keep a few spells around and sell them. Every one of my officers has 20 or 30 Glyphed Rune Words in thier bank. We have alts that have nothing on them but a single stack of each rune, page, or word component for lower spells. There is not enough room in the game to store spells were the runes and components converted to even one of each spell per class. We convert GRWs at need and sell the duplicate spells as quickly as I can, because we simply cannot store them. We make low level spells up at need from components. We destroy spectral parchments and dropped low level spells, and we encourage guild members to take GRWs at raids. I looked to the guildbank to solve this problem. It did nothing, as I could fill up its entire capacity with the bare minumum we are storing today and have overflow. The Guild Bank should have a separate spell vault section for both the spells and the spell raw materials, with spells stackable, splittable, and taggable.

- I keep records. I use Magelo and the EQ character dump to list what is on alts. I keep a log of who gets what items I tradeskill up using Guild resources. We use our DKP system to record disbursements. I am -astounded- that there is no facility to dump the bank contents and transaction logs to disk. Logging and dumping is Corruption Prevention 101, and anyone who has been in a large guild for any time at all would want such features.

Third, let me make some general comments on the Banking UI. I will confine this to function, not aestetics.

- Not having a multi-select list box to tag several items 'public' of 'for member X' is crippling. Every time I go to the bank I have to, one-by-one, make every single new item public. This is annoyingly slow, especially since the list refreshes to the top at each major state change.

- A Banker not being able to withdraw items directly from 'Donations' or deposit them directly into the 'Vault' is a barely usable paradigm. As I pointed out above, The Bank Is Full, and Donations Are Full. The donations can't go in. So I have to remove an item from the Bank, move a Donation to the Bank, and drop my removed item into Donations. The slow, tedious, and annoying nature of this action makes me want to NOT use the Guild Bank.

- There needs to be a Public Donation Button, where items go directly from Deposit to Public on Deposit. One of the things I have to do several times per day is set a Tanaan Smithy Hammer to Public, because people have borrowed, used, and redeposited all three of the ones I keep in there for guild use. This method could be a great use of the Guild Bank to store infrequenty used tools, were it not a huge maintenance hassle.

- There needs to be a Banker Only DESTROY button on the UI that just nukes whatever is selected in the Bank or Donations. There are thousands of items in the game that have no tribute or sell value that will end up in 'Donations'. Right now I have to move them to the bank, withdraw them, and destroy them on my UI. Tradekills worsen this problem. I really don't need to process more than the first two Arctic Wyvern masks.

[Moraganth]

Both alchemy and research need higher trivial recipes. Maybe it's time for researchers to be able to write what they know on a parchment (hint hint).

/agree... The guild bank is, woefully inadaquate.

The bazaar/barter hall may not be directly a tradeskill issue... but it had so much potentual for tradeskillers (which it isn't going to live up to in it's current configuration), that it should deserve mention as something they should look at.

Fletching 282+ recipes for skillups. Actually, while fletching really bore the brunt of lack of recipes for the general populace, most of the tradeskills need a little oomph 265+ or so.

[greebmushroome]

bazaar / barter hall

The bazaar and barter zones are not directly related to tradeskills and skilling up. While we have valid concerns about them, I don't think they should be included in the list of issues. I'd suggest that you send /feedback directly to SOE if you don't like them.

i can't imagine that /feedback is the answer. there must be so many of those... will yet another get noticed? furthermore, i can't imagine writing what i did in the little /feedback window. in the "top 10" lists, SOE has, in essence, requested that several recognized communities distill their /feedback requests into an organized list with plenty of detail for each issue. of the recognized communities with "top 10" lists (guilds, classes, tradeskillers), the tradeskillers are the only group with direct interest in the bazaar and the barter hall. if the amount of time it takes to farm up enough spiderling silks is relevant for this list, then the amount of time to run back and forth across the bazaar is surely as relevant. if the drop rate of PoP armor components is relevant, then the usability of the barter hall must be relevant! they all deal with the accessibility of our components!

whether it was intended to be, the bazaar has become a major interest of tradeskillers. given its close relation, the barter hall looks to become at least as useful. i have a hard time imagining a tradeskiller who didn't use the bazaar. making the bazaar and the barter hall more useful and more useable places makes tradeskilling better and easier for us all!

cheers,
-greeb

[Qadain]

Fletching and research need more high end combines.

Fletching is sad past 282, limited mostly to elemental bows and cultural arrows, mostly. There isn't a "many subcombines for a 300+ trivial fletching" item like there is for baking (Misty Thicket Picnics), brewing (brut champagne), pottery (star ruby encrusted stein), tailoring (ceremonial solstice robe), smithing (mistletoe cutting sickle), or jewelcrafting (gem studded chain).

Research just doesn't have anything past 227 so far. I'd like to see recipes for PoP spells, as well as tiers of "training runes" which would require mostly vendor-sold items and probably lots of subcombines, maybe with trivials at 148, 176, 202, 228, 254, 276, 302.

Long ago, some spells were obtainable only by researching. I'd like to see that again.

[Greymantle]

If the new drake type arrows are supposed to be a means of a skill up path the drop rate needs to be significnatly improved. I have done half a dozen of the missions and just normal exp in lavaspinnes and had 3 total drake spines drop with well over 100 drakes down.

[Quigley]

My thoughts

I guess this should go in this thread....

I would like the level restriction removed for being able to get the new DoN tradeskill quests...or at the very minimum, the level limits lowered to match the required level tag on the completed symbols.

i.e. a level 65 (not level 70) could get the quest for the grandmaster's symbols because they have a required level of 65 on them.

Quigley
Drinal

edit: I know that the drop rate is being discussed on the threads mentioned in the first post, but I didn't read them in their entirety to see if level limits was also being discussed. If they are I apologize in advance and then please disregard

[Auricula]

If Sony insists on creating more and more tradeskill containers and implements, we need more bank space, period. I wish I had the time to compile a list of all the stuff I have to lug around or store in my bank just for tradeskilling.

I find it annoying that I will have to run around and re-make tradeskill containers that I have ALREADY made (karana fletching kit, for example). How about an NPC along the lines of Rebecca Cabbageleaf where you can hand her the old, now useless, version and get a functional one in return?