Top 10 Update Next Friday

[Neebat]

I believe they stated that they had no intentions of making the vendors rotate stock again.

Vendors have never rotated stock. Sony has stated a desire to allow it. It's just a matter of taking time to implement it. That was the response to one of the first tradeskill top-10 lists.

The functionality you describe is the "under-the-counter" stock, not true stock rotation. Vendors would hold a large number of items. I think it was 80. And then only display the first 40, with the rest being "under the counter". When you bought out something in the first 40, they'd be replaced with the back stock. As I understand it, when the change happened, the total number of items held by vendors remained the same, but all the items displayed. I could be wrong.

[Nolrog]

PLEASE NOTE, THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. I will tweak it a bit, based on feedback (and how it reads) before submitting tomorrow:

5) Tradeskill components are unreasonably rare - Modified item with 8/4/2005 update.

5a. OoW drops - including Lightning Cores, Slugworms, Trean Flies, Discordant Scoriae, etc.

5b. PoP drops - temper components

5c. DoN drops - Another item might be the balance and availability of Master's level DoN drops. I know it has been brought-up before, but they are not equal. Take smithing for example. It would be nice if all drops had at least 2 zones from which they can drop, which are non-keyed/flagged. Any keyed/flagged zones should be only a 3rd option.

I used non-keyed to also mean non-flagged.

yttrium ore: Drop in multiple zones from multiple mobs. Seems to be sufficienly abundent.

pile of gravel: drops in 2 non-keyed zones of which I am aware: the hole & PoN. I usually get 0 to 2 in 30 minutes of killing gargs in either zone.

midnight stones: drop in 1 non-keyed zone, from multiple mobs. Usually end up with 0 to 1 in 30 minutes of killing in the garg area (nightstalker drop rate has been painfully bad for me). I think I've gotten one from hobgoblins but I can't remember (only done them once for my xp buff)

great reptile tooth: supposedly drop in 1 non-keyed zone and 1 keyed zone: PoN & PoEarth. (never even seen one drop but I'm going off of posts). Someone who has more knowledge of this drop please post.

Other rare DoN Cultural components:
Storm Volaas Hair, used in High Elven Master Tailoring. Drops off two MoB types in one Zone.
Great Reptile Hides

5d. Research components that are extremely rare. Here's a link to a spreadsheet that has a listing of most of the rare components: http://www.geocities.com/arrdour/rarecomponents.xls

Some hightlights are:
Yaeth's pg. 73 right
Toharens pg. 22
Yaeth's pg. 26 left
Yaeth's pg. 26 right
Rune of Zephyr (still too rare)

Another problem is the items who is used for diffrent spells.
Take words of virtue for example. It is very rare and is used for rare spells (such as Transon's Elemental Renewal) but its also a component in alot of very common spells, that will never get researched, since none will ever waste words of virtue on them.

If posible remove the rare words from common spells and replace them with common research items that will provide a way to skill up.

9) Tradeskill Super-trophy - New item (sort of) with the 8/4/2005 Update

Could we get some kind of super trophy for multi-tradeskill GM's? Here are some ideas on what could be done in this vein.

A tradeskill super-trophy is defined as a trophy you can only obtain once you have all seven tradeskill trophies (excluding alchemy, poison making, tinkering, and research), or one that requires 300 in all seven general tradeskills, or both.

One possibility is a combine that requires all seven trophies plus some other item, yielding back six normal trophies and one super-trophy with increased stats or abilities.

Another option is for a no-fail combine of all seven trophies in a quest container to yield the super-trophy.

Consensus seems to be that the super-trophy should give a skill bonus for all tradeskills. This is the preferred option. However, the developers have indicated that this may take a disproportionate amount of time to implement. An alterative would be to make the super-trophy with no tradeskill modifiers at all. A player would combine the super-trophy alone in a forge and it would return the super-trophy and a no-drop, no-rent, lore item with a bonus to smithing; it could be combined in a tailoring kit or loom to yield a tailoring-boosting item, and so on.

Another popular option is to have the super-trophy give a 10% bonus to tradeskills. A single item that has +10% to all tradeskills would be superb; alternately, each of the no-drop, no-rent, lore items discussed above could have the 10% mod.

Could the existing tradeskill trophies be adjusted so that each yields a unique 100% WR bag? Thus, a person with three trophys could get three different 100% WR bags that don't poof on logging. This was mentioned as being possible in the past.

Other than that, a Gnomish Army Knife was suggested in another thread. The only differences are:

1. A super-trophy is made from trophies in a no fail combine. A GAK is made from Geerloks in a high-trivial combine.

2. A GAK would be rare like a super-trophy, but tradable, at a high price.

3. A super-trophy would have STATS like the existing trophies. A GAK would be a pure skill mod, like existing Geerloks.

The purpose here is conserving bankspace by reducing the number of geerloks you need to keep on hand.

10) Stackability of various tradeskill components - New item with the 8/4/2005 Update

It would REALLY be nice if the enchanted large bricks stacked like the unenchanted do .... Enchanted Large Bricks of Steel don't stack either, yet the Large Brick of High Quality Ore do.

In addition, it would make it much easier to collect PoP bow ingredients if the staves would stack. One bow staff takes a full slot which hinders us to pick them up and save since tradeskillers usually are serious packrats.

[ruodrra]

Nolrag,

Text in bold italics is how I would suggest changing the language in the top ten:

5d. Most research components for spells 55 and up are too rare for skilling up -- rare being defined as those that drop infrequently or are not available in the bazaar at a reasonable price . Here's a link to a spreadsheet that has a listing of a representative list of seldom found components used in research for one enchanter trying to move beyond 202 skill -- other research classes have similar problems: http://www.geocities.com/arrdour/rarecomponents.xls

(I would recommend deleting any reference to specific components because that could imply that just increasing those fixes a problem that is much more widespread)

Recommendation: Increase drop rates of all components in all zones and provide improved guidance on what drops from which mob.

Another problem is the items who is used for diffrent spells.
Take words of virtue for example. It is very rare and is used for rare spells (such as Transon's Elemental Renewal) but its also a component in alot of very common spells, that will never get researched, since none will ever waste words of virtue on them.

If posible remove the rare words from common spells and replace them with common research items that will provide a way to skill up.

8B) Research.
The research cap is at 300 now, however, there are currently no recipes that trivial over 227. Higher level recipes are needed (such as PoP spells) so that researchers can skill up to 300. This issue is moot however until there is a significant increase in the availability of components to pursue any skillup path created -- see 5d under rare components. Creating recipes to make PoP spells would help alleviate two problems. 1) it would give researchers higher skill combines to work on, and 2) it would help bring down the price of 63/64/65 PoP spells, which are rediculously to insanely priced in the bazaar these days.

Another suggestion is to allow you to research spells for any INT caster, perhaps everyone getting the same book to do the combines. In addition, adding in recipes to research spells for hybrid spells would seem to make sense as well. INT casters can currently research spells for priests, but not for hybrids.

In addition to not having the ability to skill up past 227, researchers do not have a tradeskill trophy. Since research is being treated as a regular tradeskill, it would only make sense that there was a trophy as well.

thanks for all the hard work

[Dalmoth]

Instead of a super trophy, why not a tradeskill based charm, made via tradeskills.

Increases in power based upon the total sum of your tradeskills. Let it provide good stats (read always usable) as well as % mods to tradeskills(all). This would allow it to be more scaleable and allow for future growth as well.

[Neebat]

Instead of a super trophy, why not a tradeskill based charm, made via tradeskills.

Increases in power based upon the total sum of your tradeskills. Let it provide good stats (read always usable) as well as % mods to tradeskills(all). This would allow it to be more scaleable and allow for future growth as well.

EQ development is handled by at least two separate teams. One handles coding of game features and another handles content. A new trophy is more likely to be created if it can be done by the content team without intervention from the coders.
1. Unfortunately, there is no facility for a single item to modify multiple skills. You can't have a +Dodge and +Backstab item for instance. Same goes for a single item that adds to all tradeskills.
2. I don't know how Sony codes the charms, but I suspect the basis for each charm has to be custom coded. ie, Someone has to write code to sum up all your language skills for the Heartstone, or to check the amount of time you've been grouped in a zone, etc.
Since Sony is reluctant to consider adding a super-trophy, it prolly won't help to ask for an item that's difficult for them to create.

That's why the Gnomish Army Knife and the recommendation for the Super Trophy are worded oddly. We're asking for something that's desirable and very useful which can be created by the content team without dev intervention.

Coders are expensive.

[Xulan]

I think Dalmoth has a winner, except, I would put the charm type thing on an aug instead of a charm itself (like the wayfarer charm for ldon that increases as you work through the storylines). That would be possible as it is a total number added from your character's db and outputed as charm power.

As to not being able to have more than one modifier on an item, that may no longer be true. There are many items now with strikethrough, avoidance, shielding %, dot shielding %, spell shielding % on the same item (mix and match those). Although they are not skill modifiers, it may be that more than one skill modifying %'s may be possible on a single item. It may have been more of a db limitation in the past than anything else.

[Dalmoth]

Its a suggestion, take it for what it was. If we're asking them to create something. Ask them to create something that has some longevity and will have effect over a great number of people.

An augment for the charm slot that improved with tradeskills (wheter it provided tradeskills or not) would be welcomed by a HUGE amount of people as many people just didn't do hundreds of LDoNs.

[Xulan]

5c, can also add (I copied this from the tailoring forum):

Shissar scales- a stack + per hour--only drops off shissars in Ssraa (the grey?)

Nightmare Aracnid Silk- about a stack per hour give or take--only Drops off high level spiders in PoN.

Ice Silk-1 to 6 per hour--only drop off ice burrowers in Western wastes

Shimmering ukun hides-1 to 6 per hour--only drops off ukuns in BF,NC and Rcod might drop off any ukun in OOW. but ive never seen them drop except in those 3 OOW zones.only 6 to 8 ukuns in any OOW zone that i have seen as well.

Great reptile hide-1 to 4 per hour--only drops in CT off Racnors? ToV?

Storm Volaas Hair-1 to 4 per hour--only drop off Storm Giants in PoS

[KyrosKrane]

Why restrict the aug to just one slot, though? I see no real reason not to make the aug fit in all item slots and, in fact, in all aug type slots. This makes it a lot like the BiC augs that can fit pretty much anywhere you have an opening. This also ties in well with the existing GM augs; it allows the aug to fit into the Type 12 slot in addition to other alternatives.

[Dalmoth]

Mainly because there are two augs I know that fit the charm slot. And its the one slot so far tied to existing character traits so it my be easier to deal with. But really, I'd just rather see it charm enabled if its an aug rather than every slot but charm.

That I and I never did the ludicrous number of LDoNs to get a real charm augment.

[KyrosKrane]

Like I said, make it fit in ALL item slots, including charm, and all aug slot types. =)

[Nolrog]

I like the tradeskilled charm/augment idea, but I don't think I've got enough time to put it together in time for the list update. I suggest that we keep it as a back up item, for when something on the list gets completed, then we'll stick it in.

[Tokkyl]

5c, can also add (I copied this from the tailoring forum):

Great reptile hide-1 to 4 per hour--only drops in CT off Racnors? ToV?

Hides supposedly drop off any Raptors (mini-dino's like in Jurassic Park), but I've hunted there and killed between 100-150 raptors and have yet to see a single hide which is ludicrous in my opinion. I've given up on Master route as a tailoring option as a halfling druid since the only one I've ever seen was in bazaar for 45k - yeah right I can by four GM components for less than that!!!

Since nobody on my server Saryn/MM is selling GM HFL druid gear (Longstrider) and I'm still trying to finish task since Stone Caster's are also darn rare, was hoping to make the master level BP and legs and stick the GM augs on them but with the non-existant drop rate I'm skipping and going straight to GM level.

[perdishon]

5d. Research components that are extremely rare. Here's a link to a spreadsheet that has a listing of most of the rare components: http://www.geocities.com/arrdour/rarecomponents.xls

Some hightlights are:
Yaeth's pg. 73 right
Toharens pg. 22
Yaeth's pg. 26 left
Yaeth's pg. 26 right
Rune of Zephyr (still too rare)

I think the intent here has been misconstrued. Most researchers that I know do NOT want those components becoming common or more common than they already are. I also haven't seen much support for that change expressed in this thread.

Instead people want a viable skill up path past 202 and for the rarer componenets to be removed from less popular spells that essentially never get researched because its a massively inefficient use of the component. Devaluing rarer spells for those of us that worked hard figuring out where the best drop rates are and farming those areas isn't a very good fix.

Possible fixes:

AA's that would allow cross class research for 200+ researchers. This would practically double the skill up options available to high end researchers.

Placing certain research components on vendors or maybe implementing small quests to transform one component into another. I don't mean runes, words, etc here, but things like staff shards and scales of veeshan.

Another problem is the items who is used for diffrent spells.
Take words of virtue for example. It is very rare and is used for rare spells (such as Transon's Elemental Renewal) but its also a component in alot of very common spells, that will never get researched, since none will ever waste words of virtue on them.

If posible remove the rare words from common spells and replace them with common research items that will provide a way to skill up.

Any of the above would go a long way towards fixing the skill up issues for those in a hurry to 227, but taking the dozen or so researchable spells that sell for 5k+ and substantially altering their rarity would do a lot more harm than good imo.

-perdishon
L70 necro of Stromm

P.S. I have made a dozen or more each of RGC and BoA and sold several copies of MotS. Those components ( Y73R, Y26's, and Rune of Zephyr) are not that rare. Toha22 really is that rare, but its rarity makes it really special when you finally get one.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

I gotta disagree with those saying post 200 research is too hard. I've gotten to 212 already just from making the copies of Acumen of Dar Khura that I sell in the bazaar plus the occasional Word of Redemption and a few other combines here and there. I can't have done more than 50 or 60 combines total and every single component was bazaar purchased (and profitable to boot).

A long long long time ago (like pre-kunark... you know when research was practically REQUIRED for any int caster to get anywhere in the game) I seem to recall that at about the time they put in the practice research quests, a dev said that research had one of if not THE lowest difficulty factor of any skill in the game. I have no empirical data but that seems to be true even to this day.

I recall going on long stretches of practice and real research combines where I averaged 1 skillup per 2-3 combines. That was with an int of less than 200 also.

I will agree though that while originally the idea of class specific research combines was acceptable for role playing reasons, since LoY and the added ability for all 4 int casters to make all 3 priest class spells, any role playing arguements went out the window. We should be allowed to cross class research. The relevant (ie sub level 60, non-quest, non-ancient) hybrid spells should be researchable also for the same reason.