The Future of Tradeskill Caps

[KyrosKrane]

Actually, New Tanaan Crafting Mastery was released a couple of months ahead of PoP, if I remember right. I remember Khoren Stonefall discussing it at one point, when he was talking about how he got to 1750. (Khoren was the first to make it, BTW.)

[Nexroth]

Skill cap history

When EverQuest was released in 1999, all tradeskills had a hard cap of 200. Not that it really mattered much since Jewelcraft and I think Fletching were the only trades where you could actually reach 200 skill. There were no recipes in the other trades that had that high of a difficulty level.

The most difficult original recipes that I can recall for each trade were:

Smithing: Banded mail (175 trivial)
Tailoring: Reinforced leather armor (108 trivial) or Tailored Quiver (115 trivial), not sure if the quiver recipe originally existed.
Baking: Wedding cake & Birthday cake (162 trivial)
Brewing: Ginesh (168 trivial)
Pottery: Large bowl (148 trivial)

I don't remember precisely when, but it was sometime between the release of Scars of Velious and Shadows of Luclin that the code was altered to permit a character to specialize in one skill and advance to 250.

After that was the installation of New Tanaan Crafting Mastery as Kyros said above, right before Planes of Power came out.

And finally, Dragons of Norrath raised the cap across the board to 300... except for fishing. I guess no one could come up with a creative reason for an exceptionally skilled fisherman. *chuckle*

[CaiserSoze]

Also, in regards to the hardcoded success rate caps...its been mentioned somewhere, forgot if it was here or on the eqlive forums, that some of the newer super-high trivials, like over 400 on some of the AAAA parts, and likely future recipes, are put in place to avoid having to set a hardcoded success rate cap, so that they will be easier long-term if/when skills rise...

[Ngreth Thergn]

The GM charms are skill capped also I believe, so why bother?

Wrong

[Tyfold]

Well, I can't see one skill right now that it is even really worthwhile to bother skilling past 300.

Smithing/Tailoring, both are capped success rates (DoN GM armor)
Fletching/JC, both don't really have any high end combines that it would be necessary for. Augments I believe are capped success also iirc.
Baking and Brewing have no real recipes that are difficult or merit raising skill that high.
Pottery, for the most part has been useless and remains useless. The GM charms are skill capped also I believe, so why bother?

So out of those seven skills, I can not see a reason why I would even try to skill up too much. The Class/Race Restricted skills maybe, but even then they don't seem like they are worth the work.

But, that can all change with one expansion. The above is only based off of the current status of skills.

If they raised the caps it would go without saying that new recipes would be introduced...just look at DoN and what came with the 300 cap there.

[Flehmen]

I have a vote for changing the skill caps that the NTCM AAs give...

I'd like to see 250 as the max skill for everything with only one skill being able to be taken over 300 unless you have the appropriate AAs.

The reasoning is, there are good paths to 250 for almost everything and you do not need to be lvl 51+ to acheive. The AAs remain valueable for those who want all skills on one toon. It is a bonus for those of us who's TS toon is under 51... Plus, there really isn't any advantage to the AAs besides sucking up XP... anyone who wants to flood the market could always create several toons and go to 300 with each in a different TS.

(Or how about refund the AAs and eliminate the NTCM?)

[Ysall]

You can't backwards engineer caps back down to 250 when folks already have 300. However, if you are advocating having only one skill you can get to 350, thats a different matter. However, how could you make the decision as to which skill you would take to 350. If you base the decision on the recipies available now, you might deeply regret picking, say, tailoring, if the next expansion had recipies that made potters the tradeskill-Gods of the moment.

[Flehmen]

Again... skills should(?) cap at 250.... unless you have the appropriate NTCM.

[Tyfold]

However, how could you make the decision as to which skill you would take to 350. If you base the decision on the recipies available now, you might deeply regret picking, say, tailoring, if the next expansion had recipies that made potters the tradeskill-Gods of the moment.

A major the point of the game is roleplay (supposedly)...your choice should be based on your character, or which tradeskill you enjoy most
A tradeskill's power fluxuates all the time and balance is constantly shifting between the seven, especially with expansions. So even if potters did become gods, it would shift again next expansion, I expect.

I'd like to see 250 as the max skill for everything with only one skill being able to be taken over 300 unless you have the appropriate AAs.

This would be nice, but not that feasible because there are already plenty people over 250 in more than one, and would remain there after such a change was implemented, without spending AAs. They could really only apply another "one only" rule if they raised the caps.

[Twistagain]

This would be nice, but not that feasible because there are already plenty people over 250 in more than one, and would remain there after such a change was implemented, without spending AAs. They could really only apply another "one only" rule if they raised the caps.

I think you are misunderstanding his proposal. He is saying that instead of capping at 200 if you don't have AAs, they should cap at 250 unless you have AAs. (At least, thats how I understood him.) It wouldn't affect those who are over 250 in more than one, because they had to have the AAs to get over 200 in the first place.

[Flehmen]

I think you are misunderstanding
<snip>
they had to have the AAs to get over 200 in the first place.

Thank you for explaining what I apparently couldn't.

[Nolrog]

I heard that the tradeskill caps were going up to 350 as part of the 7th anniversary celibration*.











* Just kidding.

[Sharrien]

I heard that the tradeskill caps were going up to 350 as part of the 7th anniversary celibration*.

* Just kidding.

Evil EVIL little elf!

[Tyfold]

Ah yes I did misunderstand. I thought Flehmen meant adding a new tier of NTCM AAs.

Sorry bout that

[Ysall]

Of course, the only thing thats really worrying me is just how vehemently N'greth has been quashing this rumour that tradeskill caps might increase.