Veteran Reward 2 and tradeskilling

[Neebat]

Oops! Meant to edit this into my previous post.

As for the rune of Zephyr, I'm about to buy 2 or 3, so I know they exist now, but from what I've heard, they didn't drop at all for a long time after the recipe went live. It'd be a shame if we finally got the tailoring skillup path we're looking for, but the components were mythical for months.

[YurienStonebow]

Oops! Meant to edit this into my previous post.

As for the rune of Zephyr, I'm about to buy 2 or 3, so I know they exist now, but from what I've heard, they didn't drop at all for a long time after the recipe went live. It'd be a shame if we finally got the tailoring skillup path we're looking for, but the components were mythical for months.

<cough> karana sald <cough> <cough>

[Wyvernwill]

The problem is, that is not a bug. It comes down to responsibility. They did not want to have people skilling up on those combines, then they should have taken the responsibility to ensure that it was done as such before anyone could do it. That does not constitute a bud, it is a change that they had not implemented. If it was a bug, they would be banning people for using those combines to skill up. They have been rather strict on exploits and bugs, and since they have deemed the skill up paths as neither other than not what we intended, that does not make them a bug.

Personally, I couldn't care less than I do about the fact that tailoring was changed because in the end, it just prompted me to do a faster, easier route based on my character's race. In the end, the change was a bonus to me. But the down side is that I know that a lot of races ended up with harder paths than the one I did and unlike before where tradeskilling was on a semi level footing, being that everyone could do velious leathers, now race has a huge X factor in how fast you can skill up in a particular skill.

The problem with the tailoring side, and why so many people get irritated by it, is that the other two promised changes are still no where on the radar. Tradeskills are a low priority part of this game, that's been something known for a long time, but I don't believe that it's right that every other skill still has it's easy, buyable means while tailoring is the only one without that.

As for one among equals Bumkus... there's always edges somewhere between tradeskillers, some get insanely lucky for long periods on the RNG, some have maxed out stats because they raid and get that kind of gear. Infusion does nothing but level that playing field, except for those whom don't own DoN. Bare in mind, that with smithing combines, I was able to get my str over 430 and sat in PoK and did trades, and refreshed the buffs as needed. Infusion only puts me at 360 without buffs and lasts a lot shorter.

As for the Guildhalls and Vet Rewards being unfair. I think they are perfectly fair. Why shouldn't a company give some sort of bonus to those who've supported them longer than others? Why shouldn't there be perks involved with an expansion... but then again, there always has been perks involved. Is it right for someone to have been upset that a person who bought LoY for the Maps got ingame maps, while someone who didn't buy LoY didn't get the maps?

Veteran Rewards were given to players at no addition expansion costs, something that, to my knowledge has never happened and it's something I am happy they finally did for the player base. I am surprised anyone would grumble at all considering the first reward is double exp.

[Darknyss]

You're arguing over 'technicalities' as to what you want to call it.

Sony doesn't want you skilling past 250 using recipes from 4+ expansions old.

Face it... if you're complaining about this, it's because you're jealous that some people got to take advantage of it before you, or because you're jealous that other tradeskills haven't been nerfed as hard yet.

I missed skilling up on Iksar old-world cultural smithing back when you could sell it back to vendors for a slight profit... then I missed out on fine plate smithing... I got to 190 before the 5/5 patch... because of RL issues, I probably won't ever get to sit down and due Mistletoe sickles... and I'm patiently waiting for the changes in Tradeskills to occur.

Call it a bug, call it an exploit, call it an 'unintended mistake that went live earlier than expected, although planned for earlier'... We all understand that things that are 'too good to be true', most likely are, and should get fixed....

... no matter how much we hope they'll forget about it...

[Liwsa]

So if Sony doesn't want us to skill up on 4+ expansion's old stuff I guess we shouldn't get any experence in any 4+ expansion old content or gear.

ALL you poeple in the newbie zones(9 expansions old) GET OUT you will get banned. It is a bug you are getting experience and you will get banned for using the exploit of using anything 4+ expansions old.

[Ngreth Thergn]

please watch the sarchasm, it leads to flame wars.

[Liwsa]

Sorry was just trying to show how stupid that agrument was.

[Xislaben]

Tradeskills are a low priority part of this game, that's been something known for a long time, but I don't believe that it's right that every other skill still has it's easy, buyable means while tailoring is the only one without that.

Not to detract too much from what you're saying since I agree with it for the most part, but as for Tailoring being the only ts with no good vendorable path, what about tinkering or spell research? Tinkering you can take to 135, but spell research you're even lower. At least with tailoring you have combines in the sub 200 range that require only one drop that's fairly common off of fairly easy mobs in still-populated zones. I believe that tinkering post 135 is more difficult to raise than tailoring due to availability and price of droppables, and spell research gets even harder.

Vendorable/Questable to:
Pottery to 199+ (unfired casserole dish) [more if enchanter]
Jewelcraft to 200+
Baking 200?+
Brewing 200+
Fishing (lol)
Fletching 200+
Make Poison 54? (abysmal sea)
Alchemy 54? (abysmal sea)
Spell Research 21 (bought from gm...)
Tailoring 54? (abysmal sea)
Tinkering 148 (Aqualung, 210pp/combine)
Smithing to 162? (Ornate Platinum Chain Mail) [335 if an enchanter w/Mistletoe Cutting Sickle]

[Neebat]

So if Sony doesn't want us to skill up on 4+ expansion's old stuff I guess we shouldn't get any experence in any 4+ expansion old content or gear.

When Sony raises the level cap, they do a pretty good job of making sure people who level beyond that cap only get minimal rewards from the older content. So a level 61 gets a little experience in Seb, but a level 66 is wasting time there. A level 50 still gets fair experience in Ol' Seb (if he ever finds a group to go there.) which is exactly what it was designed for.

The velious leathers were designed as a skillup path all the way to the skill limit when that limit was 250. Unfortunately, at the time those recipes were put in, the only way to designate them as high-failure was to put in an arbitrarilly unreachable trivial. So what we ended up with for a short time was a level 65 leveling up super fast in Skyfire, definately not what the zone was designed for.

With the change, the recipes still give a chance to skill up to someone in the low 200's, just like your newbies can level up in GFay. The recipes just don't work for what they were never intended to do.

If it was a bug, they would be banning people for using those combines to skill up.

I don't work for Sony in any sense, but I do make bugs and with luck fix some. Programmers invented the word "bug" to mean "it's not working like we meant it to". If you want to call it a xytlemotlypoo when things don't work right, that's ok with me, but when a programmer sits down to work, they'll be fixing xytlemotlypoos. We know it's our fault when software doesn't behave the way we thought it would. We're sad about that and we pretty much automatically try to fix them.

On the subject of banning, Sony prefers to fix problems and generally only resorts to banning people for exploitation when it's pretty obvious they knew they were cheating. For instance, I got some experience by fear kiting with a solo cleric on the first floor of Tower of Frozen Shadow. The stupid undead didn't know they couldn't escape so they ran to the mirror and just kept banging into it. In spite of the fact that fear is flakey and I had to deal with a dangerous critter turning to kill me now and then, a GM thought the pathing was making it too easy. They gave me a warning, letting me know the designers didn't intend the undead to be that stupid. I stopping fearing in ToFS. They didn't ban me, but once I knew it wasn't supposed to work that way, I'd have been banned if I'd kept going.

So, some designers and programmers were working on a plan for how people would get to 300 skill. They still are. One of them saw that the software was doing it wrong. The problem was getting worse fast as lots of people jumped through the loophole. The tailors were using a skillup path that wasn't intended to be part of the game, but the players had no way of knowing it was broken, it still seemed hard to them.

The responsibility was entirely at Sony. Designers, progammers, people who make schedules... they broke the game by raising the skill cap prematurely. Developers know it's their responsibility, so when it wasn't working right some developer sat down and stopped the xytlemotlypoo.

It's pretty darn annoying that the tradeskill vision they were actually trying to develop still isn't in.

--
Sorry to ramble on so much. I hope I've amused you. I have to go dexytlemotlypoo now.

[mewkus]

Neebat, I think you've overlooked the fact that the changes they did to the tailoring trivials is something the developers did not expect to go live when it did. Having the trivials change when they did was unintended. Hence, the reduced trivials is a bug. And it is a bug that the developers seem to have no intention of fixing. Hence our frustration at how quick they are to fix one bug (buff timer not running out on veteran reward while in guild hall), while not fixing other bugs (the tailoring trivials that got changed unintentionally).

[Neebat]

This may sound repetitive, but for some reason these misconceptions trouble me.

Sony planned to have a revamp of all high end tradeskills including new trivials, new recipes and new skill caps. In the original schedule all that would go live at the same time as DoN. This whole massive effort was mentioned a few times before the release. This package of changes would allow the skill caps to be raised to 300 with a specific, balanced plan for progression.

Neebat, I think you've overlooked the fact that the changes they did to the tailoring trivials is something the developers did not expect to go live when it did. Having the trivials change when they did was unintended.

Correct. The design assumed they'd go live sooner.

All the trivial changes were scheduled for release with DoN.
The tailoring trivial changes were intentional and in the plan.
The tailoring trivial changes we've seen so far were released LATE.
The revised schedule would have made them even MORE LATE.
The rest of the trivial changes, bonus skill up rates and things are STILL LATE.

Hence, the reduced trivials is a bug. And it is a bug that the developers seem to have no intention of fixing. Hence our frustration at how quick they are to fix one bug (buff timer not running out on veteran reward while in guild hall), while not fixing other bugs (the tailoring trivials that got changed unintentionally).

The shift in Sony's schedule seems to be confusing you. Unfortunely, the package of tradeskill changes was too big. They couldn't get it all done before DoN came out, so they made a new schedule to postpone the trivial changes among other things. In fact, that's the decision which broke the design.

Rushing the cap increases out without the trivial changes was a mistake. The two are heavilly dependent on each other to prevent old content from being exploited in a way that was never intended. Obviously they couldn't roll back the cap increase just because the rest of the changes were still missing. So someone pushed forward some of the original planned trivial changes ahead of the new schedule.

Instead of the nice neat package Sony wanted you to see, you've got the correct tailoring trivials without the rest of the package. Everything is out of sync right now, which makes it's easy to get mixed up on where the bug is.

[Wyvernwill]

Entrely Vendorable/Questable to:
Pottery to 199+ (unfired casserole dish) [more if enchanter]
Jewelcraft to 200+
Baking 200?+
Brewing 200+
Fishing (lol)
Fletching 200+
Make Poison 54? (abysmal sea)
Alchemy 54? (abysmal sea)
Spell Research 21 (bought from gm...)
Tailoring 54? (abysmal sea)
Tinkering 148 (Aqualung, 210pp/combine)
Smithing to 162? (Ornate Platinum Chain Mail) [335 if an enchanter w/Mistletoe Cutting Sickle]

Actually, to make that a bit more factual than 200+
Jewelcraft 335 (Gem Studded Chains)
Baking 335 (Misty Thicket Picnics) (have to kill about 10 lvl 7 brownies to get enough parts to go from about 250 to 300, hard not to count this)
Brewing 335 (Brut Champagne)
Fletching 282 (Shadewood bows)
Tailoring 54 (without any farming is what I am assuming your post is going by)
Smithing 335 (Mistletoe Cutting Sickles)
Pottery 335 (Star Ruby Encrusted Steins)
Make Poison 279 (Spirit of Sloth)
Alchemy (Don't know much about this one, I know there's a lack of a good skill up path in general though)
Tinkering (Again, not a skill I have dabbled with)
Research (Trained mine up on my necro's guildmaster to 200 so I could make his lvl 50 spells, don't know much on this one either)

The reason behind my omition of Research, Alchemy, Poison Making and Tinkering is because first of all, I have little experience with all three and secondly, they are class/race restricted tradeskills, my view is more towards the open to everyone trades.

When Sony raises the level cap, they do a pretty good job of making sure people who level beyond that cap only get minimal rewards from the older content. So a level 61 gets a little experience in Seb, but a level 66 is wasting time there. A level 50 still gets fair experience in Ol' Seb (if he ever finds a group to go there.) which is exactly what it was designed for.

Actually, that's not very true. When seb came out, it raised the level cap to 60, not 65. When PoP came out, seb was still good exp. Heck I remember getting great exp at Juggs at lvl 63 for the mobs. What about now? The level cap is 70, but PoFire is still amazing exp, comparible to the higher end omens zones.

Someone could hunt nothing but fire and still do as well as some people do in omens and DoN, if not better. The only way they make hunting new zones a bit more favorable is the exp is greater for the levels in a round about way, but that's because you are hunting higher level mobs.

[Neebat]

The only way they make hunting new zones a bit more favorable is the exp is greater for the levels in a round about way, but that's because you are hunting higher level mobs.

Woot! You hit the nail on the head. They're trying to make the new recipes a bit more favorable by making them higher level for the purpose of skilling up. The old recipes with ridiculous high levels hampered this badly.

Up till now, a green recipe always dropped it's loot, and a recipe which rarely succeeds is RED. When they wanted to make a recipe rarely succeed, they marked it 300+. This was just an odd way of saying "Fails 50% of the time", they assumed that all recipes were giving no skillups after 250. Now they have to explicitly set those recipes to green at 250 to give people a distinctive reason to seek out the new content.

Effectively they were trying make a combine fail a lot, even when it was trivial. This is akin to a mob only dropping something valuable rarely, even though it's green. I don't know for sure they'll ever get functionality like that, but I could swear I've seen it mentioned around here somewhere.

We ARE still waiting on the new content.

[mewkus]

They may have planned on changing all the tradeskill stuff with the release of DoN. But since none of stuff was ready to go when DoN was nearing release it would appear that it those changes where not intended to go live with the release of DoN.

From Absor's Post

The third change (also not happening with the next update) will be an extensive revision of the trivials for most recipes. We plan to evaluate the recipes for each tradeskill and change their trivials based on various factors, including the overall value of the final product and the time investment / difficulty to gain the items needed to make the product. We will use this information to create a reasonable progression for all recipes in available to each tradeskill.

The changes to the trivials was not intended until the third round of changes. We are not even into the second round of changes yet. They may have originally intended to change the trivials for tailoring early on, but as of March 18, they did not intend to change them until they could be tested out and have the other changes in place. The change went live before intended. They even as much admitted that it was a mistake when the trivials changed. The change was UNINTENTIONAL.

I am basing this on what they have publicly said. If you are privy to additional information that indicated otherwise (ie they intended to change the tailoring trivials at that time and then intended to deceive us about their intentions), then I may be wrong.

[Mitsune Foxfire]

Make Poison 279 (Spirit of Sloth)

Don't wanna sound picky but its:
Make Poison 275 (Spirit of Sloth)