Existance of success caps vs existance of tradeskills AAs

[KyrosKrane]

It's hard for me to vocalize my thoughts on this, mostly because they're not all that clear even to me. This is somewhat stream-of-consciousness, edited a little for legibility. I'm not going to vote, just because I'm not sure my feelings can be summarized in one sentence, let alone one vote.

Each person's stance on the Mastery AA depends on how what they consider the purpose of the AA to be. Are they meant to be a substitute for high skill, allowing those who grind exp to achieve parity with those who grind a tradeskill? Are they designed to make skilling up easier by reducing fails? Are they meant to enhance the abilities of the very top tradeskillers by increasing their success rates even more? All of these are valid views, and all have been true at one point or another.

When JCM was first introduced with Luclin, it was clearly a success rate booster at all skill levels -- the cap on JC was still 250, and plenty of valuable items had trivials way over that. I forget when poison and alchemy mastery were introduced, but again, they both had a profound effect on their respective tradeskills, particularly when Omens introduced the tradeskilled augs.

Omens came out a few years later, introducing the other masteries. Again, they were a huge boost across the board. They would help when skilling up by reducing fails, and they helped the high end by wasting less supplies on fails. At this time, there were still plenty of quality items with a 50%-ish success rate before mastery, so it had a huge benefit even for the high end tradeskiller who had their raw skill maxed.

When DoN came out, skill levels went up to 300, and the value of the masteries dropped a bunch on existing recipes. At the same time, the success caps were introduced, which killed the benefit of either the mastery or the extra skill on the key new recipes (GM armors) and old recipes (Omens augments) which had previously benefitted from the masteries. (That is to say, a player would benefit from having either mastery or high skill, but would get no benefit from one if he already had the other.) This was a fundamental shift in how masteries were perceived. They were no longer a way to boost your success beyond mere skill; instead, they became an *alternative* to high skill. Naturally, tradeskillers of all stripes protested vigorously.

After DoN, several new recipes came out that benefitted from both mastery and high skill again, but these are few and far between. Ngreth has stated that he plans to introduce more goodies in the future that would also benefit from both.

I don't really see a problem with masteries. There is already a mechanism for preventing too many of an item entering the world; it's called the trivial. I have no problem with very high trivial items. I do have a problem with a mechanism that renders high skill pointless on an entire tier of top-end combines.

I guess, in a sense, removing both mastery and success caps would neatly solve the problem. It would set skill as the sole arbiter of the success chance. Perhaps they could be replaced with a new AA that sets a minimum chance to succeed, at 15%, 25%, and 35%, or something like that.

[Denidil]

very wellthought out kyros

[Catweazel]

I am someone who has only dabbled in Tradeskills for the longest time and started focusing more recently. I welcomed the chance for Mastery AA's and really did not give them a second thought about how I earned them. My thought process was purely around having the chance to succeed at items that my base skill was insufficent at, in order that I could generate some meagre return for my effort. I was disappointed to learn that regardless of my skill, certain items might fail based on the success cap.

As my tradeskills have become better, I was extremely disappointed to see that making any money off items was limited to very few products. Succeeding at tradeskills meant for the most part having hundreds of thousands of platinum. Still other success was driven by the need for a foraging "bot" or a boxed partner, or a complementary tradeskiller as another character. A single, level 30 wizard with no other support from his account owner cannot become a master researcher and that makes no sense at all. That success caps are tied to some arcane lore and yet these other situations exist is somewhat ludicrous.

There is no logical lore around millionaires being master tradeskillers, or naked foragers being left for hours in zones to collect needed supplies. After 7 odd years, EQ master tradeskilling is about elitism, about controlling influx to the market of valuable items and about keeping people playing.

How feasible would it be to introduce Tradeskill experience along the lines of Leadership, Raid Leadership and AA experience bars? Experience gained from successful combines could go into a new pot and it could then be spent on true mastery skills. This would require a new track for tradeskillers to jump on and could satisfy the current reality. Tradeskill aa's currently earned could be refunded into the Tradeskill experience pot or on choice of the player into his regular aa's. No more need for success caps either as new recipes and items in future expansions could be tied to a base skill of 300 old TS points plus whatever new Tradeskill AA's and trivials are introduced.

At least Tradeskill experience would eiminate the silliness of tying monster killing experience to whether you can string a bow or tinker a wok.

I voted yes to remove success caps and tradeskill aa's.

[Wyvernwill]

As far as I remember, making exp gain, even a seperate bar... would be a huge programming undertaking. If that is truly the case, the chances of ever seeing it... not likely.

Why do tradeskillers need to be millionaires? Or is it why do tradeskillers become millionaires? When I started tradeskilling, I had less than 100pp. Made and sold smithing things... over time, I have put about 10mpp in my bank through tradeskills. Sure, there's no lore from someone having money and burning through tradeskills because they are bored. Rich people do stupid things all the time (watch any shows that pay attention to actors and musicians).

However, a lot of tradeskillers, if they desire it, can and do make a lot of money over time off of tradeskills.

[Mannwin Woobie]

I guess, in a sense, removing both mastery and success caps would neatly solve the problem. It would set skill as the sole arbiter of the success chance.

I would gladly give up Mastery AA's in exchange for removing the success caps. Sorry, but success caps just gnaw at my gut every time I think about them.

[Bupper]

Success caps are a useful tool. They allow developers to create recipes that give tradeskillers a self-funding skill up path, making items that have enough resale value to cover their costs. This works specially well when success caps are combined with skill up bonuses, as in DoN Cultural recipes.

Ask yourself, "Do I think that up-and-coming tradeskillers should be encouraged to enjoy the marketplace aspect of the game?" Or should upper-level tradeskills be restricted to those who can pour in platinum savings or do all their own farming? What kind of recipes should tradeskillers be making to gain skill? At what level should they first begin making items that others will pay for, enough to cover their costs?

If you want a rich experience for developing tradeskillers, then you will try to find a way that they can conduct trade with their skills. Success caps on a few valuable items are one way to do this. They create some markets where the highest-skilled sellers do not have oligopoly power because of better success rates. Can someone recommend a better alternative to provide a marketplace for the goods of still-developing tradeskillers? If so, let's hear it.

There aren't all that many valuable items that have success-capped recipes now.
- Don cultural armor and augments
- OoW augments

There are many more valuable items that do not have success-capped recipes.
- jewelry using PoR and TSS metals
- tinkered AAAAs
- researched mechanoinstructions
- researched spells
- smithed and tailored OoW armor
- alchemy potions
- PoR bows

You may love tradeskill AAs or you may hate them. Getting rid of them doesn't get rid of the reason for skill caps. If you want to get rid of skill caps, then recommend an alternative for the real function that they have.

[Rinikku]

I used the Alchemy Mastery when I was skilling up and it was great. I could attempt the POK potions that I had farmed the components for and use them to skill up and make enough potions to sell so that I would have more money to buy more tradeskill pieces. I don't think I would have ever been able to afford to get to 300 in Alchemy if I hadn't had the mastery AAs. Just my opinion that removing it won't necessarily help the lower people.

[Denidil]

Bupper that doesn't make sense. Success caps don't give us a self-funding skill up path - non-trivial items that make a profit do. The price of an item is determined by supply and demand - supply can be restricted w/ drop rate on critical componants being restricted. Success caps are an artificial restriction upon supply.

Yes tradeskills should be restricted to those who can either pay, or do their own farming - that is how it's ALWAYS been. Success caps don't change that, you still either have to pay, or do your own farming.

Your entire post is one HUGE non sequitur

Your entire post is basically
"Success caps exist" => "Item becomes profitable"

that doesn't follow.


If you want to get rid of skill caps, then recommend an alternative for the real function that they have.

Drop rate restriction, which is how it's been done on every other recipe

[Bupper]

Denidil, I'll explain further, since the function of success caps seems to be harder to understand than I thought. First though, we should clarify a point. I was mistaken in saying that not many valuable items have success caps now. In fact, every tradeskill recipe except the no-fail ones has a success cap. However, that success cap is usually 95%. Most people refer to success caps below 95% when they complain about this feature. For some reason, many players who accept the 95% success cap are quite bothered by the lower success cap rates.

Success caps don't merely limit the supply of valuable items. They also enable them to be made just as successfully by somewhat lower-skilled players as by higher-skilled players. This means that players who are still skilling up on an item can compete on equal footing with players who cannot skill up further on that item. This shelter encourages developing tradeskillers to participate in the marketplace for their goods.

Unfortunately, low component drop rates alone do not enable developing tradeskillers to gain skill using items that can cover their costs. The rarity of components for these will limit their skillup opportunities, and the cost advantage of tradeskillers with more skill will limit their marketplace performance.

[Bobaten]

The success caps are also tied to the bonus skill up chances. I have no interest in inflicting up-and-coming tradeskillers with not only a loss in ability to compete in the market, but also the loss of skill up bonus. Ngreth has told us in the past that there will not be recipes that benefit from high skill, trade skill mastery, AND are good for skill ups. These recipes are good for skill ups, so they do not benefit from both high skill and mastery.
I agree that is was bad to introduce success caps without informing us that those recipes were capped. But that is an argument for a year and a half ago. Players quickly figured out what recipes were capped(less than a month after DoN) and spread the word.
What I would like to see still though, is text added to the recipe books indicating that the recipes are capped. Not all new tradeskillers read the boards to learn about the cap(though a note added to the recipe pages here might help as well). There should be something on the in-game recipe source to warn new players(as there has been on subsequent capped recipes).
Other than that, I have no problems with the success caps. I was happy cutting OOW augs pre DoN when I personally only had a 40% success chance. As long as you know what to expect, you can calculate your costs.

[KyrosKrane]

The success caps are also tied to the bonus skill up chances.

What I would like to see still though, is text added to the recipe books indicating that the recipes are capped.

I was happy cutting OOW augs pre DoN when I personally only had a 40% success chance. As long as you know what to expect, you can calculate your costs.

I think those three points I quoted are worth repeating. What bugs me most of all was that the devs were intentionally silent about success caps, but very vocal about the skillup bonuses. To this day, we don't have an accurate accounting of which items have the success caps and what those caps are. At the last Fan Faire, Maddoc said it was the "grandmaster armors and Omens augs", but he didn't give exact values for the caps, nor did he explain whether the lower-tier augments have caps as well, for example.

I play Kyros as a merchant. He's a businessman out to make a profit for Erollisi and country. I use spreadsheets and graphs and charts to calculate my costs and determine selling prices. For much of the early GM sales, I actually lost money because of the success caps. I couldn't figure out why I was failing so much. I attributed it to bad luck, particularly since the devs (and other players) had drilled into us the mantra, "The RNG is evil. You can't judge success rates from short-term results."

To this day, I see players selling GM armors at just above the cost of components. They assume they're covering their costs, but in fact, they're losing serious money because of the success caps. On the one hand, I can't compete with their prices without losing money myself. On the other hand, I know that sooner or later they're going to run out of cash and complain that tradeskills are too expensive. If I try to explain the success caps to them, they accuse me of lying and trying to drive away competition, because of course no in-game source documents the caps. It's a no-win proposition for me, so I just bite my tongue and alternately mourn my lost sales and their falling interest in tradeskills.

[Twistagain]

To this day, I see players selling GM armors at just above the cost of components. They assume they're covering their costs, but in fact, they're losing serious money because of the success caps. On the one hand, I can't compete with their prices without losing money myself. On the other hand, I know that sooner or later they're going to run out of cash and complain that tradeskills are too expensive. If I try to explain the success caps to them, they accuse me of lying and trying to drive away competition, because of course no in-game source documents the caps. It's a no-win proposition for me, so I just bite my tongue and alternately mourn my lost sales and their falling interest in tradeskills.

Along those same lines, I am currently trying to finish off my smithing and am offering GM armor and augs at just above cost (AFTER I calculate fail rates and component cost.) The problem is that people seem to know what components are needed and what they cost but accuse me of lying about what the true cost is. My prices are quite a bit (at least 10-15%) cheaper than the cheapest traders...but I specify that my prices are only good until I get 300 smithing.

People ask me to lower it (and I will a bit...but I can't lower it much, as I'm only making a few percent.) When I tell them I can't go much lower, they proceed to explain to me that my cost is almost double the component cost, and therefore, I am making a killing (ignoring the up to 40% failure rate, of course.)

[Mannwin Woobie]

They also enable them to be made just as successfully by somewhat lower-skilled players as by higher-skilled players.

And this is exactly why I think success caps go against everything we have always known about tradeskilling. Unless it is a very trivial combine, a higher skill should mean a better success chance. Anything else is manipulative. They introduced a new equation without any explanation, or any foundation. I think it is insulting to the higher-skilled players who actually took the time to get where they are.

[Ngreth Thergn]

And this is exactly why I think success caps go against everything we have always known about tradeskilling. Unless it is a very trivial combine, a higher skill should mean a better success chance. Anything else is manipulative. They introduced a new equation without any explanation, or any foundation. I think it is insulting to the higher-skilled players who actually took the time to get where they are.

A higher SKILLED player has the same chance.

what we are talking about is someone who threw AA's at it no longer getting a benefit from a higher skill. Or adversely we can say someone who threw AA's at it is getting it "easier" because they don't need to have as high a skill.

Someone with JUST a high skill has the same chance as someone with a lower skill that threw AA's at it. Those "caps" are set so that a 300 skill does not see the caps. At a plain skill, your chance is the same as the cap (ok so now people can figure the caps) At least this is true for the cultural. I have not checked the OOW augments. It is not true for some of the caps I put in (caps on items since DoD), but those are in for lore nearly as much as for limitations...

The issue comes in with the AA's and skill adjusting items. It turns out that those no longer matter, in these cases.

But then, that is what was done with these. Someone with a high SKILL has the same chance as someone that has an item, or the AA's, and "rewarding" them with the lack of a need to spend exp on AA's or go to the effort to get an item (this is before the items became easy to get.)

Sure you can say it "trivializes" the skill. But those AA's always did trivialize the skill. Those are made so skill means you are just as good as someone with AA's instead of skill.

I absolutely do not believe someone with the AA's is more "skilled" than someone without. They are not more skilled at tradeskills... they have just dedicated some of there NON tradeskill experience to a magical ability to "cheat the odds." The items are similar to this, though they work in a different way. You are not more "skilled" because you have an item, the item just helps at making it easier to do your work.

I will not be spending much time in this thread making arguments and counter arguments. I just wanted to put that in.

[Zopharr]

Cank the AAs

I’m not fond of the success caps, or salvage – particularly how one had to be a certain level to get Salvage. Like many others have stated above, tradeskilling should be a viable alternative to exp grinding in EQ. I don’t have the time to be a hard-core raider, and barely have time to be a casual player.

On the other hand, I do have time to do tradeskills. My dwarven cleric is a 300 jeweler; he shouldn’t have to level to 70 to be able to get Salvage-3 so he can compete on a level playing field with others. But until he levels up from 65 to 70, he’s capped at Salvage -2. And he had to have a minimum level to get mastery, as well.

Why shouldn’t a character who is able to get to 300 in a skill, be able to compete with another character who is level 70 with a batch of AAs? If the answer is because the 70 character killed a lot more stuff, then let’s just say that SOE’s “vision” is that there is nothing to the game besides killing MOBs and get rid of tradeskills entirely. I know that, short of getting a divorce (NOT a preferred option), I will never have the play-time to compete with the hard-core raiders. Tradeskills provides a niche. Take away that niche - or reduce it by making killing mobs a major limiter of success (for required levels or AAs) - and I don’t have a lot of incentive to keep playing.

As for 'why should folks be able to make things they can't use due to level caps,' labor specialization is rather common in the real world. (And even in EQ - spell researchers being be able to make shaman or cleric spells that they can't use, while clerics and shaman can't.) Are we going to start restricting combines based on rsomeone's religion, so an Inny worshipper can't make a Rallos Zek augment, or start prohibiting shammies from making melee-oriented augments, or INT-casters from making WIS-catser spells? Guess that only chain-classes can make chain armor, plate classes plate armor, and forget any int-caster smith making a two-hander? Start limiting tailor combines as well?

I would say dump the salvage skills, etc. I would just ask that trivials which have been created based on them (Taafite cutting, for example) be revised when that happens.

Zopharr