Effective Trivials of GM armor accounting for success caps

[Bobaten]

While it did take the smithing/tailoring communities some time to wrangle out how the skill caps affected them, Jewelers(who had data collected under the 250 skill cap), were aware there was no improvement for 250-300(with mastery) in under 2 months. And in May we first got confirmation that mastery didn't help you break success caps.

You know, not everyone is level 70.
Not everyone plays 4-6 hours a day, 3-5 days a week.
Not everyone can "pump out 3 or 4 AA's a play session", even with double-XP.
It's stuff like this that makes me still believe that the Tradeskill Mastery AA's were a mistake

That's why I have moved my arguments away from the 250 mastery 3 example, and instead focus on the example of someone with 290 skill and no mastery. I personally only have mastery in one tradeskill (research) and only to level 2. The other masteries are currently a waste of AA as far as I am concerned (Though JCM now has value once again).
The arguments that tradeskills should be independent of character level have failed (unfortunately). Between masteries, salvage, and required levels to get the symbol tasks there are currently many benefits for level 70 tradeskillers.

But that's the point Bobaten - these WERE supposed to be the next set of even better combines when DoN came out - but they didn't actually require your skill to be high - it just required you to already be at 250 and grind some AA's. It just shouldn't be.

If you had the maximum available skill, and the maximum available AA when they came out, you were ready to make these armors the day they went live. But as I said, no one told us that, so the people who were ready instead jumped on a skill up treadmill to nowhere.

[Carmaris]

The skill up chances don't matter because the lower skilled smiths won't make the items. Even for the lowest trivial one scale items the lower skilled smith is behind. The smith at 290+8% would a 65% chance of succeeding on a bracer, a 300+15% smith would have a 95% chance. With a 95% success, if the MDS cost 20k, I am sure there would be people willing to sell the bracer for 25k. Meanwhile the average cost for for the 290 smith is 30k. So by attempting to make a bracer, you are in effect spending 5k for a chance to skill up. With the skill up mod that is actually cheaper per skill up than doing the GoD scepter so it might be viable. But move to the 408 trivial items, and the 290 smith now has a 58.5% success rate, while the top smiths still have a 95%. Now the expected cost is 34k for the lower smith while the top smith can still sell it for 25k. If someone is willing to pay 9k for an extra skill up chance it better be a BIG extra.

But all that is assuming you are making the items ahead of time to sell in the bazaar. In my experience most GM armor sales are done by request (often with the customer's material). If one smith has a 95% chance and charges 5k, while another smith has a 58% chance but will do the combine for free, which smith are most going to trust with their scales?
The success caps are the number one thing that make these items viable skill up combines. It's just sad that at the same time they lessen the value of the very skill they help you to get.

You're forgetting the first rule of tradeskills:

If you're getting into tradeskills to make a profit, you're getting into them for the wrong reason.

[KyrosKrane]

The intent was for max success to occur at 250 skill.

And the whole point of this thread is to say that the original intent was wrong for a great number of reasons, all of which have been pointed out. The proposals here are to change the system so that the same objective criteria are met (number entering the world, rate of skillups, and so on) while removing the success caps. You're welcome to disagree with the proposal, but as far as I can tell, most of the objections so far boil down to "it's fine because I like it this way." (Having said that, you could also say that the proponents of change are saying "it's wrong because we don't like it." )

The point we're getting at is that there is a huge disparity between the difficulty of getting 18AA and getting 50 additional skill points. It is also wrong, in a progression based game, for ANY form of progress to simply be ignored. Additional skill, greater modifiers, or higher masteries should always have an effect. I have not seen anyone deny these two claims. These claims are contradictory to the success caps. If we accept the claims, then we cannot also accept the success caps. There has to be another way. This thread has one proposal. If you have another, I'd love to hear it. The more ideas we have for change, the more likely we are to find the best solution.

And if the drops were made more frequent to compensate for such a change, that would only really compensate those at max skill (since they would have the most successes, and thus the most resulting sales).

Now that's just plain wrong. Additional drops means the price of obtaining those drops (time to farm or plat to buy) will go WAY down, which in turn means they're more accessible to lower-skilled players who can now afford to fail more on the same budget. There is no argument that skilling up is expensive, and that it should be expensive (again, in either time or plat). The solution proposed here would make more supplies available for combines (allowing for skillups despite the failures), while at the same time ensuring that those who pay the price for skilling up get just rewards for their effort (additional successes).

On your way up, you were able to make GM gear at the current success rates, and sell the results on the open market to mitigate your costs.

The fact that you were at 300 before these were introduced is also academic.

You can't argue both sides of the coin. Either I benefited from the GM armors while skilling up (false) or I didn't (true). Either other people skilling up get the benefits of this armor, or they don't. Ultimately, you're right in that it's academic. How people got to where they are isn't the topic here. The topic is where to go from here, and what impact upcoming changes would have.

[KyrosKrane]

Are you arguing for the abolishment of masteries then?

Are you arguing that 18AA is the same difficulty to acquire as 50 skill points, from 250 to 300, in either smithing or tailoring?

Let's please try to keep the focus on the proposals. If you have an alternate proposal, again, please bring it forward. If you have suggestions on how to make the above proposal better (trivial changes), then please say it.

[KyrosKrane]

If you had the maximum available skill, and the maximum available AA when they came out, you were ready to make these armors the day they went live. But as I said, no one told us that, so the people who were ready instead jumped on a skill up treadmill to nowhere.

Precisely. On this point, we agree. Like I said, it may have been enough to announce the cap when it came out, so people knew what they were getting into. Since they didn't, we now have the current situation.

[Aeght]

And the whole point of this thread is to say that the original intent was wrong for a great number of reasons, all of which have been pointed out. The proposals here are to change the system so that the same objective criteria are met (number entering the world, rate of skillups, and so on) while removing the success caps. You're welcome to disagree with the proposal, but as far as I can tell, most of the objections so far boil down to "it's fine because I like it this way." (Having said that, you could also say that the proponents of change are saying "it's wrong because we don't like it." )

Technically, we are each saying 'we prefer it the way we prefer it... ' No matter what arguements we each present, we are arguing are cases. You seem to be dismissing arguements now not on the supporting arguements, but by saying that all supporting arguements are irrelevant since they do not support your side.

The point we're getting at is that there is a huge disparity between the difficulty of getting 18AA and getting 50 additional skill points. It is also wrong, in a progression based game, for ANY form of progress to simply be ignored. Additional skill, greater modifiers, or higher masteries should always have an effect. I have not seen anyone deny these two claims. These claims are contradictory to the success caps. If we accept the claims, then we cannot also accept the success caps. There has to be another way. This thread has one proposal. If you have another, I'd love to hear it. The more ideas we have for change, the more likely we are to find the best solution.

I agree with the end result of making max skill plus mastery more valuable than either one alone. But your solution is to achieve that involves changing existing trivials, which is where we disagree. I feel that the problem is best addressed by way of new recipies. This maintains a better progression of end product. Velium gemmed weapons and masters in the low 200's, existing GM recipies in the 250's, and the new recipies (GM non-visible gear is my suggestion) around 300. This provides a new benefit to those with max skill without adversely affecting those still on their way up.

Now that's just plain wrong. Additional drops means the price of obtaining those drops (time to farm or plat to buy) will go WAY down, which in turn means they're more accessible to lower-skilled players who can now afford to fail more on the same budget. There is no argument that skilling up is expensive, and that it should be expensive (again, in either time or plat). The solution proposed here would make more supplies available for combines (allowing for skillups despite the failures), while at the same time ensuring that those who pay the price for skilling up get just rewards for their effort (additional successes).

Ah, but the success rate on those drops will be much lower for those on their way up. If parts supply increases as dramatically as you suggest, those with the skill will flood the market with higher supply at the current rates and reduce the demand for such gear. Frankly though I really doubt supply would be allowed to get that high. A dramatic increase in supply is a large assumption on your part.

You can't argue both sides of the coin. Either I benefited from the GM armors while skilling up (false) or I didn't (true). Either other people skilling up get the benefits of this armor, or they don't. Ultimately, you're right in that it's academic. How people got to where they are isn't the topic here. The topic is where to go from here, and what impact upcoming changes would have.

You are misunderstanding me. It is not either you benefited skilling up or did not that is the question. It is the fact that even though you did not benefit on your way up you still stand to benefit from such a change. As a result of such a change, you would suddenly face less competition on supply. At the same time you are expecting an increase in supply of raw material, meaning an increase in windfall profit for you. Even if that windfall is short term it would only benefit those currently at or near max skill. And by the time the market corrects itself, the proverbial new recipies may well exist.

Don't get me wrong... I have a lot of respect for you and the effort you have put into skilling up. We are on the same server and I have occassionally been one of your suppliers.

I would like to see your level of skill be meaningful. I just don't like that being at the expense of those of us at lower levels of skill.

Aeght

[Aeght]

You're forgetting the first rule of tradeskills:

If you're getting into tradeskills to make a profit, you're getting into them for the wrong reason.

There is a large difference between expecting to make a profit and not wishing to see your cost mitigation nerfed.

You may or may not make a profit on the way up via GM gear, and I am not arguing that you should definately make a profit above and beyond your development costs. I am merely arguing that currenly any sales offset those development costs. Reduce successes and you reduce that offset. You make development more expensive.

Increase parts supply to counter that reduction, and those with higher skill flood the market with finished goods, reducing sales value on the finished goods and compounding the problem.

You also thus radically increase the supply of finished goods available for use (which is why I so not expect that raw materials supply would be increased any meaningful amount).

Aeght

[Aeght]

Are you arguing that 18AA is the same difficulty to acquire as 50 skill points, from 250 to 300, in either smithing or tailoring?

Let's please try to keep the focus on the proposals. If you have an alternate proposal, again, please bring it forward. If you have suggestions on how to make the above proposal better (trivial changes), then please say it.

Difficulty is tricky to measure. Those 18 AA's require lvl 70. If for whatever reason money was not a significant issue, there are routes to 300 that still do not require particularly high level. Now you can argue that level 70 is obtained incidentally, but if you happen to be a class (or better yet a box'r) and good at earning plat... how tough is it, really, to do periodic shopping and spend a lot of time clicking combine?

Alternatively if you are a class that has a lot of downtime, farming while lfg may well advance you quicker than you would save up the 18aa's particularly if you have other aa's you wish more for normal hunting.

As for alternatives, I have several times suggested new recipies (which is currently the default suggestion from the Dev's as I recall) as the solution.

In other words, why do the existing recipies have to change to make 300 plus masteries valuable? Why penalize others in that manner, when new recipies would provide?

Non-visible cultural recipies is just one suggestion for new recipies. New weapon recipies is another. Why are these non-starters as solutions to you?

Aeght

[Bobaten]

The change that would make me happy is if Mastery also reduced success caps. It wouldn't lower the success rate of anyone, and would give the 300 mastery 3 folks success rates very close to the ones proposed here.
Curiass+Greaves (386): 81%
Sleeves (368): 84%
Helm+Boots+Gloves (334): 90.75%
Armband (316): 94.125%
Of course that's a code change, not just a trivial adjustment, so it would take more work, and might not be feasible. It doesn't solve the no-mastery-for-tinkers problem, but I know they are working on that already anyhow. 278+8% would remain the magic number to get max success (just more success with mastery 3).
As I wrote that I thought of a better (even more complicated) change. Sony could change the hard caps to soft caps. In other words, after calculating the uncapped success rate, take the portion above the cap and divide it by 2. That would again give the highest skilled/AAed tradeskillers the best chance, and would require near max skill to get it. This actually is pretty much how EQ deals with lots of things (mana, hp's, ac).
Both of these solutions would increase the success rates for everyone, so there might be a problem with too many items entering the world. But if the current intention is to increase the drop rates, this could be done instead.

[Bupper]

Second, I did not benefit from GM and Master armors. I reached 300 skill long before I even had completed the quests, let alone did the armors or augments.

Third, it is most definitely feasible today for anyone, of any class and race, to reach 300 skill without touching GM or master armors. It's not easy, and it's not cheap, but it's possible and very doable. The GM and master armors provide a much needed bridge for many races, but they're not the only game in town.

Fourth, my proposal would decrease success rates for smiths who are not max skill. This is fine. The tradeoff for it would be greatly increased supplies for GM armors and an increased chance to skill up, over and above the bonus that's already there. The smith or tailor at 250 + mastery 3 today would fail more, but he or she would also have more attempts and would skill up faster, enabling him or her to get to "profitable" production levels faster. The net is that a person skilling up would waste less money on fails and get skillups more quickly than today.

You got to 300 Tailoring before the trivial for Ceremonial Solstice Robes was nerfed. Ceremonial Solstice Robes were vastly easier, but DoN cultural is one of the best replacement alternatives. Increasing drop rates while raising the trivials for DoN cultural will NOT preserve this as a skill up path, unless there were a dramatic increase in the skill up bonus. Only the highest-skilled would be able to compete in the resulting marketplace. If the same numbers of end product were entering the world, more would be entering from the highest-skilled and fewer from the up-and-comers, and up-and-comers would not be able to sell enough to cover their expenses.

DoN cultural currently serves to provide a somewhat level playing ground between 250 and 300 skill for tradeskillers to grow while competing in a marketplace for their goods. I could see taking this concept still further in the future, with combines success-capped still lower for some items, so that production for them was spread among a much broader base of tradeskillers. Of course, I also want to see still other new items that only the highest-skilled can compete effectively in making.

[KyrosKrane]

In other words, why do the existing recipies have to change to make 300 plus masteries valuable? Why penalize others in that manner, when new recipies would provide?

Non-visible cultural recipies is just one suggestion for new recipies. New weapon recipies is another. Why are these non-starters as solutions to you?

You bring up a good point, and I had to stop and think a moment. Eventually it dawned on me that there are two distinct problems here.

First is the future-looking solution of how to challenge and reward tradeskillers with max skill, AA, and mods. New recipes is the best (and in fact, only) solution for this. I fully support new recipes, cultural or otherwise. History has shown that most new recipes usually coincide with a new expansion, which would suggest that they would appear around September, if history is any guide. That's five-ish months away.

Second is the issue of existing recipes, and how the cap affects those. As far as this issue goes, I'm staunchly against the existence of the caps on principle. The problem is, as people have pointed out, that the caps do serve a purpose -- but they also have some odd side effects, like skewing the market a bit. My goal is to come up with a different solution that maintains those goals as much as possible but still eliminates the caps themselves. If we can come up with a reasonable solution now and convince the devs to implement it, I certainly wouldn't be against that.

Edit: One side note. To the best of my knowledge, the masteries don't require any levels other than 51 just to be able to buy AA. It would be unbelievably painful to get 18AA at level 51, but it is possible for the dedicated.

Edit 2: As to difficulty, I would measure it by the time needed. How much time does it take to earn 18AA, and how much time to farm/buy components and click to 300? We also have to consider that there are tradeskillers out there who may never have access to AA at all -- but everyone, regardless of level, has access to 300 skill in one tradeskill.

[Bobaten]

It's actually 59 not 51. But you are correct that there are no prerequisites (except for the class specific masteries from Luclin).

[Astroshak]

Edit: One side note. To the best of my knowledge, the masteries don't require any levels other than 51 just to be able to buy AA. It would be unbelievably painful to get 18AA at level 51, but it is possible for the dedicated.

Jewelcrafting Mastery requires that the enchanter be level 59, as it is a Class AA (that ought to be given to everyone else at some point, IMO, with enchanters being given some other 3 6 9 AA in recompense for the loss of their class AA). Because of this, I believe, the other Mastery AA's also require the character be 59, though unlike the enchanter's JCM, they have no other requirements (enchanters need to spend 6 in General and 12 in Arch and be 59 before they can work on JCM). If things were to be truly fair, the other Mastery AA's need the following limitation added : Must spend 12 points in Archtype Abilities.

[KyrosKrane]

I honestly don't recall what the specific limitations on the mastery abilities are; and I apologize if I made a mistake on those.

Still, it just goes to prove my point further: the mastery AA are even less feasible for lower level players who want to max out one tradeskill.

[Aeght]

You bring up a good point, and I had to stop and think a moment. Eventually it dawned on me that there are two distinct problems here.

First is the future-looking solution of how to challenge and reward tradeskillers with max skill, AA, and mods. New recipes is the best (and in fact, only) solution for this. I fully support new recipes, cultural or otherwise. History has shown that most new recipes usually coincide with a new expansion, which would suggest that they would appear around September, if history is any guide. That's five-ish months away.

Second is the issue of existing recipes, and how the cap affects those. As far as this issue goes, I'm staunchly against the existence of the caps on principle. The problem is, as people have pointed out, that the caps do serve a purpose -- but they also have some odd side effects, like skewing the market a bit. My goal is to come up with a different solution that maintains those goals as much as possible but still eliminates the caps themselves. If we can come up with a reasonable solution now and convince the devs to implement it, I certainly wouldn't be against that.

Well alternatively the existing recipies could be bumped up to eliminate the cap, and new marketable recipies added lower but the markets would be skewed either way.

Edit: One side note. To the best of my knowledge, the masteries don't require any levels other than 51 just to be able to buy AA. It would be unbelievably painful to get 18AA at level 51, but it is possible for the dedicated.

I cannot remember the requirement for mastery 2, but mastery 3 requires lvl 70 and mastery 1 requires lvl 59.

Edit 2: As to difficulty, I would measure it by the time needed. How much time does it take to earn 18AA, and how much time to farm/buy components and click to 300? We also have to consider that there are tradeskillers out there who may never have access to AA at all -- but everyone, regardless of level, has access to 300 skill in one tradeskill.

The point is that there are many variables there. They are different yet compatable paths, and designed to offer choice.

Aeght