Bazaar Dynamics and New Tradeskills

[Aaneras]

In light of the upcoming changes to tradeskills, I'd like to ask a basic question: is restoring a viable player economy a goal, and what services will people be able to provide with tradeskills?

As some background, I came back to the game about a year ago after a 2 year absence. The bazaar population when I returned was of order 400 traders (compared to 2 x 500 pre-server merger.) It's now down to 200-250, and the reason is pretty simple: there is very little reason to buy things in the bazaar. Potions and currency (orum, radiant crystals) are the main reasons to go there. The economy is like a clogged sink: plat flows in, but there isn't much to spend it on. The net result is that people are willing to pay substantial sums for minor upgrades (hello, rank 2 spells!)...but, conversely, can completely skip the player economy with minimal impact on their game.

New quests (and severe gear inflation) have obsoleted most crafted (and tradeable) gear. Food/drink/arrows have stagnated, with the best items (barring special quest food for crafters) being identical (or almost so) to those 3 years. Pottery is useless. There is a market for jewelry (and an upgrade path.) I understand that the revamp will restore some market for tailoring and smithing. Is there any plan to upgrade:

1) Baking/Brewing/Fletching - natural candidates for consumables. The first two might benefit from potion-like effects as distinct from force-feeding, and fletching could logically use disposable arrows.

2) Pottery - Absolutely useless in it's current form. Permitting crafted energeian orbs that people want (e.g. light) might provide a limited role. Craft-only better orbs would be still better, and consumable. Jewelcraft augments might also be a good idea.

[Posatrocible]

Hear Hear!

[Aldier]

Fletching is slated for a full revamp with the release of SoF (per Ngreth's posts in other threads).

I agree with you that their does not seem to be much of a bazaar market outside of a few small areas, but then there are the tradeskill components. Dropped components that are being sold in the bazaar. I think they may make up a substantial portion of the items sold. Partly because of the tradeskillers' needs for large quantities of select items for skilling up. But if this is not what the bazaar is for, then I am not sure why it is in the game. Other than to stick your mules so they don't get slowed down for being 300+ overweight.

[Catweazel]

Fletching is slated for a full revamp with the release of SoF (per Ngreth's posts in other threads).

Are you sure?
I was reasonably certain Fletching would not be in SOF, that Poison Making would be next on the revamp train, and it isn't in SOF either...

[Bara]

Fletching has already been decided for SoF. Ngreth has said if I remember correctly that his choice for the next skill to do would be poisonmaking, if he can convince his bosses. So it would be after SoF and if his bosses approve him using his time on it as opposed to say, ordered him to create player made mudflaps for halflings to wear.

[Ngreth Thergn]

What he said.

I have never stated that Fletching is in SoF. Just that it is "on the list"

[Marissas]

tradeskills

What I'm seeing is Basically, there are alot of really great ideas that have been thrown at the table , yet none of them have landed on it. (let alone get past thinktank) They cant totally rethink every tradeskill every year or two to keep up with "trends". (or can they ...) The point is, if they would project perhaps a little farther when they implement certain things (God love sunshard Ore) EVERY single person wouldnt be well on thier way to being 300+ in all skills. We the tradeskillers are no longer an unique occasion in EQ, our goods are not highly sought after in fact other then boredom there is little reason to continue the trades.

They tossed combines in every epic so that everyone has to work something if they want an epic, they put things like sunshard ore in the game so people could max any skill they want, relatively easily given an insurmountable amount of cash. The future of tradeskills is questionable at best. I really hope the powers that be come up with something fantastic to keep the tradeskillers from giving up the ways of trade completely and make us once again the unique feature in EQ that we were meant to be.

[Zaltak]

I would like to see shopping lists for Bazaar searches .Like spell sets you can make a list of your favorite items to search for and then save those to a 'shopping list'.I am always forgetting what i want to search for and get board quickly trying to remember:-P

[Zopharr]

EVERY single person wouldnt be well on thier way to being 300+ in all skills. We the tradeskillers are no longer an unique occasion in EQ, our goods are not highly sought after in fact other then boredom there is little reason to continue the trades.

They tossed combines in every epic so that everyone has to work something if they want an epic, they put things like sunshard ore in the game so people could max any skill they want, relatively easily given an insurmountable amount of cash. The future of tradeskills is questionable at best. I really hope the powers that be come up with something fantastic to keep the tradeskillers from giving up the ways of trade completely and make us once again the unique feature in EQ that we were meant to be.

Tradeskillers ceased being rare with the 'Aide Grimel' quest in PoP. Instead of tradeskills being a niche, all of a sudden raiders (since it required flags and raid drops) could get decent raid-level gear if they tradeskilled as well. Raiders were happy because they got more gear. Sony was happy because they created another time-sink to slow progression. Players were happy because every other raider was tradeskilling like mad and dumping stuff in bazaar for cheap. The only people who weren't happy were non-raiding, old-time tradeskillers who skilled up before anything decent could be made.

Anytime Sony gives decent rewards for tradeskilling, people are going to tradeskill. Basic economics. Lots of folks are working on tradeskills now because of the TS charm. Not just one tradeskill . . . all of them.

If Sony stopped making decent no-drop items that you could only get by tradeskilling, fewer folks would tradeskill . . . but do you really want things like the Artisan charms to go away? If not, then lots of folks tradeskilling is a fact of life.

Take some solace in the fact that at least Sony (with Ngreth) is being much more considerate of non-raiders. In PoP, all the decent drops were from third-tier planes that only hard-core raiders saw (no getting in once you reached "X" level.) At least everyone could get DoN missions for scales; any mob can drop Sunshard; and the new smithing revamp should also be global like sunshard. So we're not in the position we were when PoP came out where only raiders could get top-end tradeskill drops. The glass is at least half-full.

Garshok

[Gaell Stormracer]

Tradeskillers ceased being rare with the 'Aide Grimel' quest in PoP.

Actually, I've been playing long enough to remember the first "Tradeskill Epic" quest -- The Coldain Shawl series; at that time I was actually in a Tradeskill guild -- "Cookery and Spirits" -- and I was quite dismayed to see the number of people throwing money at the "problem" of skilling up. On the baking quest parts of that at least, I made a little money MQ'ing the combines, but that wasn't really viable for the later parts.

So, it's a matter of degree; I see the Shawl Quest, the Aid Grimel quest, AND the Artisan Charm as all acting to give an incentive for raider-types to "grind" tradeskills for a particular reward. They may well not bother with the skills after they've got the reward, but still, the effect is there.

[Zopharr]

Actually, I've been playing long enough to remember the first "Tradeskill Epic" quest -- The Coldain Shawl series; at that time I was actually in a Tradeskill guild -- "Cookery and Spirits" -- and I was quite dismayed to see the number of people throwing money at the "problem" of skilling up. On the baking quest parts of that at least, I made a little money MQ'ing the combines, but that wasn't really viable for the later parts.

So, it's a matter of degree; I see the Shawl Quest, the Aid Grimel quest, AND the Artisan Charm as all acting to give an incentive for raider-types to "grind" tradeskills for a particular reward. They may well not bother with the skills after they've got the reward, but still, the effect is there.

Ah, yes, the venerable Coldain Shawl quest; the final shawl still holds a revered spot in Zoph's bank despote being retired (slightly soiled) ages ago. While I remember lots of casters in my guild working towards it then (a family-style guild at the time), virtually all of them tradeskilled anyway, so guess I didn't notice as much. Didn't have the added 'feature' of having to spend extra AA to max the other tradeskills either, 1450 being the max then.

You are right, though - as long as there are raid-level no-drop items available only through tradeskilling, there will be lots of folks tradeskilling. (Droppable items lots of folks will simply purchase instead of skilling up). So the real question is do we want tradeskillers to be uncommon, or do we want Ngreth to have decent tradeskiller bennies like the Artisan Charm and - before ethat - Aide Grimel and the Shawl. We can't really have both.

I prefer having the charms, etc. <grin>

Garshok

[Marissas]

The difference being that you could "stick" a combine for the CPS without being max level tradeskills and people often did, the trivs werent as high. For epic purposes ALL tradeskills dont need to be maxed. For Aide Grimal the same forthe CPS holds true. The Artisan Charm however you MUST max all tradeskills to reap the full benefit. THATS the difference. With more max tradeskillers, there is no novelty let alone any type of uniqeness.

Tradeskill quests seem to have come and gone, I dont see the artisan charm being outdated any time soon. (as long as its as big an upgrade as it is for the average joe) The more people that have max tradeskills the more effect it will/has have/had on the market.

As far as rather having the charms (etc) I would agree at face value, but once you think all the possiblities through, it looks less appealing.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Well not everyone is happy with the stats on the artisans charm.

Especially since it has no Mod2's (and will continue to have none) so it is not quite an "everyone" item. I do admit that it can have a largish appeal though.

[Bara]

To my way of looking at it, it does not matter to me WHY someone chooses to tradeskill. I certainly don't have an opinion on the "purity" of their motivation to tradeskill. I do have opinions on how the actions of the entire player base and by extenssion the players selling in the bazaar affect my tradeskilling efforts.
In the end I think we all fire up our computers and log into EQ for our own enjoyment; however anyone decides to find it; be it tradeskilling, raiding, socializing, roleplay or PvP. And I feel mixing and matching is good; I think of it as cross-pollinization of the game.

[Kross]

i personally started tradeskills on my warrior (twink at the time, main now) to reap the benifits on the charm. big seller was 2 aug slots, so even without maxing all tradeskills...its still a decent item considering you can do a slipgear and wanderlust aug to add over 100hp/mana to it in one night.

i'm curious to see what the stats become if and when the tradeskill caps get raised