Top 10 Update for Feb 2006

[Sharrien]

Something else for possibly addition to the top ten:

Improved Block is missing from the list of other foci that can be added to a DoD Seals. I know not all classes have the block skill, but neither does every class have parry. As a beastlord who has block skill and can't parry, but is sadly lacking any Improved Block for the forseeable future, this oversight is a real sore spot.

[KyrosKrane]

My suggestion for a new item: remove the tradeskill caps. The text below is cribbed from a post I made on the EQLive boards.

There is no logical, rational, role-playing reason for tradeskill success caps. They are an artificial construct, nominally to limit the amount of successfully-made items entering the game. However, there is no lore in game suggesting or justifying their existence. Heck, players wouldn't even know about them if the devs didn't tell us, out of game, that the caps exist. People would otherwise just write it up to bad luck.

Now let me ask you this. Why does my success rate not increase on these? My skill has gone up. I have learned new abilities to lower my failure rates. By any logical explanation, I should get better at making these items. I cannot rationalize these caps in any way, shape, or form.

If you want to lower success rates, then raise the trivial. That's what it's there for, by design.

In an OOC perspective, this is very bad policy of the direction in which tradeskills are headed. The caps essentially mean that progression is meaningless. Imagine if raiders were told that all their gear would be capped at 200hp, even though the items say in the item info 300hp or even 400hp. Imagine the devs saying, "We don't want to make the encounters too easy. Maybe we'll release encounters in the future where those extra hp on the items will mean something." The raiders would outright revolt. Progression should always have a reward. That progression could be in raid encounters or in raising a tradeskill or in getting an AA ability.

Right now, as it stands, there is no reason to progress in tradeskills other than a personal sense of pride. This is flat out wrong. Vague promises of "something in the future" are not acceptable. If it's in the game now, it should be useful and meaningful. Otherwise, it's just broken.

[Wymp]

did not mean to be "hard" on the post just very clear

And the roboar thing is already a possibility on my list of "future expansion ideas" but not set in stone.

And while the speed may be able to be affected... the vibration is part of the animation, and extremely unlikely to be changed.

The only reason I did not do the speed increases already was I needed to consult with the Team Lead about it before I did it, because we would not be letting people create boars, just upgrade existing ones... and I wanted to be sure with the lead that it was okay to do this with something that was a box incentive and not something everyone has the ability to get in game.

Hmm .. might there be a possibility of "refunding" the boar to those like me that put the slow, rambling beast on an alt since it was not useful atm and we got sick of seeing the "/Claim" text every time we logged on?


And, in my opinion, yes .. #7 is pretty much covered for now with the upcoming added bank space.

Would also like to see #5 and #8 moved up the list .. unless there is no actual "order of importance" implied. Those two issues are the most annoying to me, personally. Much more so than bag design .. I find it easy enough to just right-click and look inside, myself.

[tnexus]

I have a feeling that the success caps were put in place largely because they saw the tradeskill mastery AAs and also 15% mods as a way to create an influx of items into the economy at a higher than desired rate. There's a reason we're not seeing anything better than 5% mods now. If the current cap is 60%, then a modded skill of 298 should be just as successful to make an item as 345 skill. And even with the new tradeskill AAs, they only seem to be affecting items without a cap thus negating their use. Now I could be wrong on that since I don't quite remember how they work, but it seems to me they're trying to cover up some blunders done in expansions past.

Oh, and Sharrien, you might wanna look at this for your IB3 needs. Gotten 2 in 3 attempts so far from that mission.

[Maevenniia]

Also keep in mind Kyros that these recipes (DoN cultural) with teh capped success rates also have an increased chance for skillups...perhaps the two are related somehow...

[Twistagain]

Also keep in mind Kyros that these recipes (DoN cultural) with teh capped success rates also have an increased chance for skillups...perhaps the two are related somehow...

Only true for the cultural combines. The OoW augment combines don't fit that pattern.

[Bobaten]

Only true for the cultural combines. The OoW augment combines don't fit that pattern.

Actually, I think they do. At least that is what I recall from when they added the increased skill up chances.

[KyrosKrane]

Also keep in mind Kyros that these recipes (DoN cultural) with teh capped success rates also have an increased chance for skillups...perhaps the two are related somehow...

I don't doubt that's a consideration, but the problem then becomes why these are on the absolute best items that tradeskills can currently make? Compare the Master's armor, which is pretty darn close in terms of power. That also has an enhanced chance to skill up, but as far as anyone can tell, there is no cap on the chance to succeed there.

When I spoke to Maddoc and Absor at the last Fan Faire, their idea at that time was that the enhanced chance to skill up would be a balance against the rarity of the components -- that is, stuff that is ultra rare would provide a better skill-up chance than stuff that was store-bought. This was supposed to be part of the rebalancing of tradeskills, to ease the high number of combines required by the change to the skillup formula. I see no problem here. The items that have an enhanced chance to skill up all require rare and contested drops.

Please don't misunderstand. My complaint is about a very specific and narrow issue: that high-end progression in smithing, tailoring, and alchemy (and possibly jewelcrafting; I think cutting the Omens augments using JC is also capped, but I'm not sure) is largely meaningless because of this cap. The enhanced chance to skill up is a huge boon, but the flip side is that people won't get the expected benefit from that high skill.

I believe that players should reasonably expect a reward from having 300 skill, a high skill mod item, and the Mastery AA. I do not feel it is equitable that a person with just one of these three should have the same reward (in terms of success rates) as a person with all three.

[YurienStonebow]

jsut some ideas for improvements....


item management....make a couple arrow buttons at the top of the bank screen. when you click on one it scrools to the bank of the next person on your account with their name showing. can only keep the bags on the displayed toon open and personal inventory. to move items put it on you then put in new bank. code to amke sure no nodrop items are transfered....

trophy/geerlok....i know we suggested the army knife so why not make hte knife recipe each of the 7 other geerloks....can add tinker/research/poison as well. gives 5% to all trades or can make it to where you can combine two geerloks to get the bonus to jsut those trades. once all 7 are added you get teh army knife

items/requests that ahve been added/changed/removed from top 10 need to be removed so we can get current lists. any chacne of doing this Nolrog?

[Sharrien]

Oh, and Sharrien, you might wanna look at this for your IB3 needs. Gotten 2 in 3 attempts so far from that mission.

Thx for the tip Tnexus. In my chest slot, however I wear the Uqua tunic and it is my only Pres of Xegony item. That's one of the best beast tunics in the game that my guild can reach atm and has a critical focus on it, so would be extremely painful to switch out for the Legionairre's tunic. Really, I don't see getting Imp Block 3 until I get my savagesoul gloves from Anguish and that is still quite a ways down the road for us. Circumstances like this is why I believe we should have the option to make an aug with Imp Block just like we can for Parry.

Will pass on the link to the IB3 tunic to our other beasts. I'm sure there are some interested in it who weren't as lucky as I was to get the Cresent-Embalzoned Jerkin.

[Fesser]

One humble observation on the removal of tradeskill caps is this: EQ has had soft caps for as long as I've played it. Remember the soft AC, ATK caps for rangers? I'm sure other's are out there, but that's my main melee.

If you want to think about this game in terms of things like physics and the RL, which I don't understand why we do, think of the subtle imperfections in metals and temperature and if the armor requires perfection sometimes the ore is to blame!

Anyway to the question at hand:

I'd love to have tradeskilled bows looked at very hard. The last decent tradeskilled bows were from PoP and that is a few expansions ago. Would a GM weapons quest/aug process be out of the question? GoD brought some decent weapons but a full set of cultural weapons would be fun.

If not cultural, how about class quests for weapons? Same concept; crappy weapon with three aug slots, level restricted augs for major enhancements and perhaps quests to give effects such as enraging blow, sharpshooting etc.

[Rawckett]

Tinkering Mastery =)

[Fonceur]

Also keep in mind Kyros that these recipes (DoN cultural) with teh capped success rates also have an increased chance for skillups...perhaps the two are related somehow...

Well, I am pretty sure that if people had the choice, let say by having another cultural hammer/needle that took away both the increase skill up AND success cap with the same end results, most wouldn't go for the skill up path... I mean, what is the point of an increase skill up mod when you make the higher skills/aa's level useless by capping the success rate...

[Wymp]

Oughta just start a new thread to talk about robo-boar upgrades and leave this one to Top 10 ideas, heh.


I agree with Rawckett, though. Tinkering Mastery would be quite nice to have to replace the newly resolved issues. May mean just giving it to everyone since it's a racial skill .. but I find it hard to believe that any non-gnome would seriously think that they'd find benefit from putting points into it. And, there's a few AA's already given to multiple classes that are not of equal use/importance to all of them.

As would Jewelcraft Mastery for everyone and not just enchanters. That made some sense when it started but is really pointless now.

[Nolrog]

I agree with Rawckett, though. Tinkering Mastery would be quite nice to have to replace the newly resolved issues.

This has been raised many times. Currently, the AA system does not handle racial AAs. Until it does, I don't see any benefit to putting it on the list.