Veteran Reward 2 and tradeskilling

[Liwsa]

Velious tailoring trivializing at 335 WAS NOT A BUG. That was the trival on it since it was created.

The new "VISION" of tradeskils is what says it should triv at 252 NOT any bug.

Sony has admitted that the lowering of the trival on Velious stuff and Soltice robes WAS NOT suppose to go live when it did BUT they did nothing to put it back.

[Wyvernwill]

Well, my point was just that the unintended benefit of the velious tailoring HAD to be removed fast. So did the effect of Vet Reward 2 in the guild hall. It was an "unintended benefit" or from Sony's point of view, an exploitable bug.

Two issues with that statement:

First: Velious tailoring and Solstice robes were of no benefit compared to anything else. By your statement, I could almost gather that you might not have ever sat down and farmed those components. To get 200 combines worth of materials for Velious Tailored leather, it usually almost took me about 15-25 hours, minimum. Bare in mind, killing Arctic Wyverns, they drop a hide maybe one in three mobs, pretty much the average for all the leathers, if you are lucky.

Then you have to farm Small Bricks of Velium. Semi common out of Crystal Caverns, but atleast you could change around the pieces and blocks and large bricks to your liking. Time consuming again, but bare in mind, SoE added the forge to the city down there long after the fact... I believe sometime around early Planes of Power.

Now, you have to make the tanins. Drake Eggs (foraged and very uncommon drops from drakes), Cobalt Cod (semi rare fish in Cobalt Scar only) and Yew Leaves (semi rare forage and ground spawn that's hard to find). Getting 200 of either of those takes many, many hours.

Hmm... massive amounts of foraging for minimal chances of gaining skills... somehow that doesn't seem all that broken to me.

Now, onto solstice robes. Why were these a problem? Almost EVERY tradeskill has something from the Earring of the Solstice that made skilling up very easy, costly but very easy.

Mistletoe Cutting Sickles (I GAURANTEE that none of the 300 GM smiths did so without doing these. Fully purchasable means to 300, all you need to do is track someone down to imbue emeralds)

Star Ruby Encrusted Steins (Again, a fully purchaseable means to 300 for pottery. Compared to most other means, I could almost gaurantee every 300 potter made it there because of SRES. All you need is an enchanter for the mana.)

Misty Thicket Picnics (Atleast the two above had some sort of elevated cost to them, these are insanely cheap and easy to skill up on)

Gem Encrusted Chains (Poor return on a successful combine, however a fully purchasable means to 300 when Blue Diamonds aren't available... but then again, all of JC is pretty much purchasable skilling.)

However, out of those four above, Solstice Robes are the ONLY one of them that requires actual farming for Spider Silks. It also requires you to have someone to imbue emeralds, high level JC for the Gem Encrusted Chains and someone to enchant silver, but I guess that's what makes it the "must go" one of the five.

As for the Veteran Rewards...
How in the heck could it possibly, in any realm of rational thinking, been an "unintentional" benefit. The first thought that passed through my mind was "Hey! that will rock with tradeskilling" almost a MONTH before they ever went LIVE, but you're telling me, developers can not see what I can at first glimpse of something I have never tried out?

And explain to me how this all is a bug and exploit? They created the guildhalls to keep buffs from fading. They put all tradeskill containers into the guildhalls. They created and tested the Veteran's Rewards. This all WAS NOT UNINTENTIONAL. Their intentions, now seeing the removal of the duration in guildhalls leads me to see one simple thing. They wanted people, whom wouldn't have gotten the second Vet Reward to sign up for 1 year subscriptions. Pure and simple. Everything done with this was intentional from the day it was set up. No one, not even every single dev, could make me believe that they never once thought of, or brought up the side effects of the Vet Reward + Guild Hall and how it would affect tradeskilling.

The argument on how tailoring was so broken and exploited compared to smithing and the rest of tradeskills really holds no ground with me. Every main tradeskill has purchasable means to 300, though some are diety restricted (fletching). I don't see in any way possible, how tailoring was so much more broken than smithing. Heck, high end smithing stuff even sells better than tailoring... I wonder why.

[Ngreth Thergn]

No one, not even every single dev, could make me believe that they never once thought of, or brought up the side effects of the Vet Reward + Guild Hall and how it would affect tradeskilling.

I can.

There are curently only about 3 devs that really think about tradeskills. All the rest are concerned with their own corner of the world.

can you guarantee to me that any of those three devs were even on the pannel that worked on vetran rewards.

And then... can you guarantee to me that they then thought about how vetran reward + guildhall would affect tradeskills... WHILE they were at the same time working on the GoD tradeskills that they were working on at the same time, the 10,000 or so recipies and items that went with GoD...

You guarantee that with that workload, you would have thought of every conotation of somthing that was done on the side?

Now... that said. 15 points in a stat does NOT make that large an increase in the rate of skillups, so I don't see why it is necessary to kill it. But that is my opinion.

[Elyssanda]

Now... that said. 15 points in a stat does NOT make that large an increase in the rate of skillups, so I don't see why it is necessary to kill it. But that is my opinion.

Um Ngreth, love ya, but #2 MAXES stats.. its not jsut a 15point increase like the festive doll. If you've spent the AAs for planar power etc, we're talking ALL stats 335 or more.. if you normally barely hit say 240~something.. that's almost 100 point increase.
All resists hit 500 too, not that anyone worries about them in the guildhall, buuut...

[Maevenniia]

What bugs me is how this is such a high-priority issue when it's truly not a "game-breaking must patch asap" issue (it's not as serious as a macro-able platinum exploit recipe, for example), and there's no communication at all on all the current hot tradeskill topics.

I fully understand it's an unintended effect, because someone did not put 2 & 2 together and realize what would result, and yes it should be fixed eventually, but it would be nice to let it remain in place until they get done making all these changes in the 'smoothing out' process...say as compensation for the too-early nerf to tailoring trivials. Gods forbid something beneficial be left in for a little while, when they refuse to undo an admitted mistake that is harmful.

/sigh

[Ngreth Thergn]

Um Ngreth, love ya, but #2 MAXES stats.. its not jsut a 15point increase like the festive doll. If you've spent the AAs for planar power etc, we're talking ALL stats 335 or more.. if you normally barely hit say 240~something.. that's almost 100 point increase.
All resists hit 500 too, not that anyone worries about them in the guildhall, buuut...

Ah missed that part... yeah it makes some difference... but when we are talking above 150 combines, it is again not more than a 1-2% difference. Bellow 150 it can make a rahter large effect.

Using the old formula (which may give a BETTER chance of success than one curently gets...)

skill 200 for a 250 trivial item stat 200
3.79% chance of skillup

skill 200 stat a 250 strivial item 355
4.73% chance of skillup

not quite even a 1% increase in the chance of a skillup.

on a 350 triv item in this range the difference is about 2%, bigger, but not ginormous.

now 1 skill on a 350 triv item the difference of chance of skillup IS as large as 45% or so.

at the higher end... the stats just don't make such a huge difference. They do make a difference, just not huge, and at the lower end... tradeskilling is so easy already... does it really matter?

What bugs me is how this is such a high-priority issue when it's truly not a "game-breaking must patch asap" issue (it's not as serious as a macro-able platinum exploit recipe, for example), and there's no communication at all on all the current hot tradeskill topics.

But at least I did not see evidence of an emergency patch to fix it, just a statement that it will be changed... so not "super-high" priority at least.

[Tiroon]

skill 200 for a 250 trivial item stat 200
3.79% chance of skillup

skill 200 stat a 250 strivial item 355
4.73% chance of skillup

not quite even a 1% increase in the chance of a skillup.

From 3.79% to 4.73% is less than one base point but a 24.8% increase.

[Ngreth Thergn]

From 3.79% to 4.73% is less than one base point but a 24.8% increase.

Yes...

but a 24.8% increase of chance on a very small chance in the first place is still a very small overall effect.

I am just looking at overall effect on the game. Sure, the numbers can be manipulated to make it look bad... but did it really make that much of a difference? A person using this would not skillup 24% faster than a person not using it.

[wtpooh]

While I wish this would stay around I think one of the reasons sony would change it asap is that it is not fair to everyone. For those that are not guilded atm they can not us a guildhall. And at that if they are guilded and have not bought DoN they are also left out. Just my thoughts.

Wtpooh

[Wyvernwill]

Fair to everyone? puhlease...

Was it fair to everyone that some were allowed to GM tailoring while others got stuck with 10s of thousands of plat worth of combines in the bank because of an unannounced change to tailoring?

Was it fair that they even added a benefit to having a guild tag?

Is it fair that some classes can solo nearly even level mobs to their character or higher, while others can barely solo a green con mob?

EQ is not based on fair for everyone. If it was, everyone would have GM resurects and always be earning the same exp no matter where you hunted. Raids would always drop a piece of loot for every member of the raid, mobs would drop pieces of loot based on group members as so nothing rots. EQ is a game, there are pro's and con's to everything, all the way down to what class you choose, even race and diety can come into play.

What's the point of buying expansions if there isn't some sort of selling point and a reason to buy it? That's exactly what the guild halls were. Actually, that's exactly what the 16 slot banks and ingame maps were also.

Ngreth, I can see your point on the devs, however I still believe it was very careless and poorly planned on their half. I will admit that it irritates me a lot that they want to get this taken away, but yet there has been little stated on when the remaining two parts of the tradeskill patches will go live. To me, it comes across as this is a higher priority issue than finishing something they already started. You even pointed out yourself that numbers wise, this AA doesn't provide that huge of an impact at all.

The other thing that they aren't seeing is that the AA may only last 15 minutes and refresh once every 24 hours, but I've been able to gather the supplies for 200 combines and finish combining them all within about 9 minutes. The way I see it, it just slows people up a bit, causing them to take 15 minutes out of each day to work trades, instead of a few hours every few weeks.

[YurienStonebow]

Fair to everyone? puhlease...

Was it fair to everyone that some were allowed to GM tailoring while others got stuck with 10s of thousands of plat worth of combines in the bank because of an unannounced change to tailoring?

Was it fair that they even added a benefit to having a guild tag?

Is it fair that some classes can solo nearly even level mobs to their character or higher, while others can barely solo a green con mob?

EQ is not based on fair for everyone. If it was, everyone would have GM resurects and always be earning the same exp no matter where you hunted. Raids would always drop a piece of loot for every member of the raid, mobs would drop pieces of loot based on group members as so nothing rots. EQ is a game, there are pro's and con's to everything, all the way down to what class you choose, even race and diety can come into play.

What's the point of buying expansions if there isn't some sort of selling point and a reason to buy it? That's exactly what the guild halls were. Actually, that's exactly what the 16 slot banks and ingame maps were also.

Ngreth, I can see your point on the devs, however I still believe it was very careless and poorly planned on their half. I will admit that it irritates me a lot that they want to get this taken away, but yet there has been little stated on when the remaining two parts of the tradeskill patches will go live. To me, it comes across as this is a higher priority issue than finishing something they already started. You even pointed out yourself that numbers wise, this AA doesn't provide that huge of an impact at all.

The other thing that they aren't seeing is that the AA may only last 15 minutes and refresh once every 24 hours, but I've been able to gather the supplies for 200 combines and finish combining them all within about 9 minutes. The way I see it, it just slows people up a bit, causing them to take 15 minutes out of each day to work trades, instead of a few hours every few weeks.

if it only takes a few minutes out fo the day to play with your tradeskills wouldn't that be what SOE wanted then? SOE ahs stated that they wanted EQ to be a team friendly game where people get together and hunt instead of solo. they were concerned that too many ppl were going solo and not grouping so........

[Wyvernwill]

You're right, they have. They've also put in many, many measures to nudge people in that direction. For example, why are missions and ldon adventures 3 person minimum? What about the exp bonuses for more people in group and a sixth person not really affecting the split of exp? Good signs they are aimed at group play. But all of that is not to say that no one can solo, let alone extremely effectively.

As for the few minutes out of every day, I am assuming you are referring to the combine times? Bare in mind, that is not the total time I put into tradeskills in a day. Generally, I spend about 2-3 hours farming three or four nights out of the week. Subcombines don't take all that long. I usually just fire up Infusion when I am ready to do the final skilling combines. That is what I meant. At that point, I mass combine until time runs out, put the needle away and go back to farming until it pops again.

All in all, it's a very circular, boring process with a few short highlights when skill goes up a bit.

[YurienStonebow]

that's all i was trying to say. i think SOE is trying to nudge more and more into grouping and not solo. that's all fine and good but they need to make some solo thigns too for ppl taht are guildless or can't grp often due to RL. maybe make camps inthe same zone where grps can kill but make the drop rate lwoer so the grps won't camp there for easier drops.....maybe put the solo camps on the walls of zones i guess /shrug

[Bumkus]

...

/takes off the Moderator Hat

Sorry, I'm going to get a bit rantish.

Respectfully, I understand this was unintended and needs to be fixed eventually, but I'd like to point out that there are plenty of things HURTING tradeskillers right now that need fixing too and all we've had is SILENCE, or refusals to fix them.

The nerf to Tailoring trivials (ex: arctic wyvern hide armor) was rolled out too early by your own admittance, but was that fixed and put back the way it was until several months down the line you are actually ready to roll out the changes? NO! But this benefits us so it must be fixed immediately?

/sigh

Ah, but one of the things I like about tradeskills is the sense of being one among equals. Sure different races have different skill up paths, but the choice of race is the player's decision. Other than that, we are all in the same boat together. Would you want some tradeskillers to have advantages based on factors that are independent of the game world? Should a person have a better chance of advancement because they gave Sony $25 for an expansion pack (access to guild hall through DoN only) or because they had an account longer?

I understand the frustration at losing a real benefit, but I am personally frightened at the thought of Sony "selling" advancement mods. Truth is, I struggle with the whole verteran rewards program. I do hope it helps stabilizes the population base over the next year, but I cringe at the thought of Sony expanding upon this program.

edited: Didn't mean to single you out Maevenniia. I didn't realize this thread went onto a second page. T'would appear that MANY people have strong opinion on this matter.

[Neebat]

For the record, I recognize the original design for tailoring had a lot of recipes with trivials over 300. However, prior to the release of DoN, no one could use those 300+ recipes to skill up past 250. So we're focusing on the ability to use the existing recipes for skillups beyond 250.

How do we know that was a bug? Originally, the trivial changes, new skillup path and the skill cap increase were all scheduled to be release together at the same time as DoN. (Sony said so.) If they had followed the original schedule, everyone would have skilled from 250 to 300 under a single set of rules as designed. We haven't seen the full set of new rules yet, but we know it doesn't include skilling up to 300 on Solstice Robes.

Unfortunately DoN came out and the new skillcaps with it, before they had the trivials all worked out. This schedule mismatch created a window where old trivials could be used with the new caps. This is an unintended effect (a bug) and lots of people immediately set out to use it. Since these were the most practical skillup paths available during this inconsistent time-period, it makes sense. The developers didn't intend this to happen, and soon after DoN came out, someone at Sony jumped to fix the bug. I have no idea why they fixed that one bug so much earlier than the others, but to that poor reviled staff member, this is a simple bug fix.

I never intended to upset the disappointed farmers and never expected my explanation to cause a flame fest. The high end tailors ask why Sony did this, and I was just trying to answer from a programmer's perspective. I think maybe they don't want to know the answer, they just want the fix undone. I can understand that, but this isn't the forum to petition Sony.

From now on, I'm going to avoid threads which mention velious tailoring.