New from the Dev Team~!

[Verdandi]

Tradeskilling is for the elite.....at least reaching a +150 (+100 for Tailoring) level is.

I disagree. PoP tradeskilling is for high levels, which is as it should be since PoP is for high levels. But there is a LOT of stuff out there that is readily accessible to lower levels. To name a few: stat foods and drinks, golden idols, silver through velium jewelcraft, acrylia and velium tailoring, even some blue diamond smithing. All of those use ingredients that can either be farmed under 50 or purchased for anywhere from a few silver pieces to 500pp per attempt (pocket change for the elite nowadays).

Historically, tradeskills were a fringe thing that was pretty much for those who didn't have a lot of time to play (and thus not a lot of time for finding groups) or who simply didn't enjoy exping. Tradeskills offered a different way to see the world and challenge themselves...to enjoy the game. Without tradeskills, I daresay a lot of people wouldn't have played EQ as much or as long as they did. Ubers, generally speaking, had no use for tradeskills because there were no phat lewtz to be made. Lower levels and casual players are the people who kept interest in tradeskills alive. They pushed and pushed and pushed for stuff that could actually sell, for a wider range of products, for items that would be usable beyond level 20, for drops off of stuff that wasn't green. That is why we were given harder recipes, valuable products, and challenging drops.

For that reason if nothing else we owe it to the lower and mid levels to remember their interests and keep tradeskills viable for them as well. They got us where we are. It will be a very sad day in Norrath when tradeskills are no longer worthwhile until level 60.

[Angelsyn]

The PoP chain stuff doesn't blow me away and it's certainly not as good as the equivalent plate. I have no idea of how the needed items drop. If there is a gross imbalance in the drops, then I agree they should be more balanced. Seafarer's chain is marginally better than banded, but better.

The CT chain is much better, in terms of relative quality and available tempers, than the CT plate. I guess I feel that stuff like Heraldic plate mostly balances that out.

As it currently is, chain classes have CT chain, plate classes have BD diamond plate.

Would I be against more recipes? Of course not. If there are plate classes that don't have access to BD plate then a recipe should be added. I just don't want the market flooded with even more stuff.

You're missing the point...

I'm saying that BD-Cultural Chain (for chain classes) should be upgraded.

I'm saying that each type/era of armour should be looked at on it's own. For example... it does a Vah Shir Warrior absolutely no good at all to say "chain classes have CT chain, plate classes have BD plate", because the Vah Shir Warrior can't wear any BD plate!

I'm saying that the reason nobody makes BD Cultural Chain is because it stinks... that's a problem.
I'm saying that the reason nobody makes CT Plate is because it's not that good and many times easier & more profitable to make CT Chain... that's a problem.
I'm saying that the reason nobody makes Nightmare Plate or Chain is because it stinks (especially with that rediculously high recommended level)... that's a problem.
I'm saying that the reason you're much more likely to see PoP Chain items for sale than PoP Plate items is both because the Chain is comparatively better for its target classes and requires significantly less farming... that's a problem.

P.S. I think old-style Cultural is very close to being just fine. The drop locations for Sunlight, Winter & Seafoam could be adjusted a little... but the armour itself is perfectly fine for the 30's & 40's.
The only real problem there is the high level and high cost of enchanting Ore.

[DeegerStormcrow]

I'm saying that BD-Cultural Chain (for chain classes) should be upgraded.

I don't mean to argue with you Angelsyn, but why? BD armor plus CT chain gives fairly complete coverage. For sure there are some gaps, like WE warriors, and if that's what you are talking about I guess you are right. It seems minor, though, and I never had any problems (as a WE ranger) with the disparity prior to CT chain.

[Angelsyn]

I'm saying that BD-Cultural Chain (for chain classes) should be upgraded.

I don't mean to argue with you Angelsyn, but why? BD armor plus CT chain gives fairly complete coverage. For sure there are some gaps, like WE warriors, and if that's what you are talking about I guess you are right. It seems minor, though, and I never had any problems (as a WE ranger) with the disparity prior to CT chain.

Why?

Because not everyone can hunt in CT (in fact, many people can't and other people just won't).

Because an Iksar Warrior Smith (for example) shouldn't have to hunt in CT to make himself some decent armour. Because a Human Ranger Smith (again, for example) shouldn't have to do the same thing.

I think Smithed armours should follow a progression...

(Thurgadin Quested)
Nightmare
BD Cultural
(Skyshrine Quested)
Tae Ew
(Kael Quested)
Hurricane
(Ornate Molds)
Elemental
(Elemental Molds)

I think the Recommended levels on Nightmare armour need to be removed while we're at it.

I also think that Leather/Silk class armours should fit into this progression as well.

[Lilosh]

Forgive the stupid question, but why should Skyshrine quested be worse then Kael Quested?


If I recall, the skyshrine armor requires one to be Ally to the CoV, no small feat. ANd the same may be true of Kael quested. Are the armor drops that much harder for Kael Quested?



-Lilosh

[EnfinitiStarr8]

Forgive the stupid question, but why should Skyshrine quested be worse then Kael Quested?

I think Angelsyn ment the AC on the items. Kael armor is the highest AC for the Vel Quest Armor. Skyshrine is the overall best. I, play a Human Ranger of Karana (STOP laughing please) and I have spent more time on trade skills then leveling. I have yet to get even the Thrug armor yet and starting to think I just wont.
The farwater scale tunic (Stats: AC 52, STR 12, DEX 10, STA 8, WIS 8, HP 120, mana 50, sv disease 15, sv poison 15, wt 6.5, medium) is MUCH better then Thurg, higher AC then Kael and overall better then Skyshrine. Even with the lowered stats for me being 51 and it haveing a rec of 63.
Or I can go with the new Tae Ew Chain Tunic (Stats: AC 45, STR 5, DEX 5, STA 8, WIS 11, AGI 8, HP 50, mana 50, 5 to all saves) and I'll get FULL stats b/c it only has a required level of 51!
I dont even bother going on Keal Raids anymore, chain never drops and the one good item I ever got, Bow of the Huntsman I replaced with Twisted Longbow. I just XP and tradeskill.
But this is all just my 2cp and what do I know, I'm CHOSE to be a Human Ranger of Karana....

[Angelsyn]

Forgive the stupid question, but why should Skyshrine quested be worse then Kael Quested?

I think Angelsyn ment the AC on the items. Kael armor is the highest AC for the Vel Quest Armor. Skyshrine is the overall best. I, play a Human Ranger of Karana (STOP laughing please) and I have spent more time on trade skills then leveling. I have yet to get even the Thrug armor yet and starting to think I just wont.
The farwater scale tunic (Stats: AC 52, STR 12, DEX 10, STA 8, WIS 8, HP 120, mana 50, sv disease 15, sv poison 15, wt 6.5, medium) is MUCH better then Thurg, higher AC then Kael and overall better then Skyshrine. Even with the lowered stats for me being 51 and it haveing a rec of 63.
Or I can go with the new Tae Ew Chain Tunic (Stats: AC 45, STR 5, DEX 5, STA 8, WIS 11, AGI 8, HP 50, mana 50, 5 to all saves) and I'll get FULL stats b/c it only has a required level of 51!
I dont even bother going on Keal Raids anymore, chain never drops and the one good item I ever got, Bow of the Huntsman I replaced with Twisted Longbow. I just XP and tradeskill.
But this is all just my 2cp and what do I know, I'm CHOSE to be a Human Ranger of Karana....

Very good example... You can clearly see that the Elemental Chain (that you have) is better than the Tae Ew Chain (that you listed) and much better than Thurgadin Quested.

Elemental Molds should have a Rec. Level of 65. Elemental Crafted armour should have a Rec. Level of 63. Ornate Molds should have a Rec. Level of 61. Hurricane Crafted armour should have a Rec. Level of 58. Kael & Skyshrine Questedarmour should have a Rec. Level of 51. Nightmare Crafted armour should have a Rec. Level of 45. Thurgadin Quested armour should have a Rec. Level of 40.

I have no problem with some Tae Ew armours having better AC than Skyshrine Quested, or better stats than Kael Quested... but it should never have better stats and better AC.

Hurricane crafted armours should have slightly better stats than Kael Quests and slightly better AC than Skyshrine Quested.

With the four Elemental crafted armours, they should be very similar... but 1 set with better AC, 1 set with better HP/Mana, 1 set with better Stats & 1 set with better Saves.


See what I'm getting at? Balances.

[Cantatus]

I would also like to see some more culturals spread out IE Tailored cultural for High Elves, Dark Elves etc...

Actually, I wouldn't mind them expanding cultural tradeskills either. The great thing that cultural brings to the game is that it causes less competition between traders of like skills. For instance you could have 10 smiths on your server at 250 and barely have any of them be in competition with each other since 2 are Humans, 2 are Dwarves, 1 is a Barbarian, 1 is an Iksar, 1 is a High Elf, 1 is an Ogre and 2 are Dark Elves.

However, I feel that if they were to expand cultural, I don't think they should do it in the fashion they have done it before. Generally items that have such high class/race/diety restrictions don't sell very well since there aren't too many people that fall into a particular catagory. It also makes it so Sony/Verant has to put a lot more recipes into the game to accomidate every restriction (which they still haven't been able to succeed at). So I feel it would be better to do something like add Dwarf Brewing, High Elf Jewelcraft, Halfling Baking, etc. and have them craft general items that everyone can use. Cultural expands tradeskills into subcatagories which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

(Thurgadin Quested)
Nightmare
BD Cultural
(Skyshrine Quested)
Tae Ew
(Kael Quested)
Hurricane
(Ornate Molds)
Elemental
(Elemental Molds)

Hmm... I'd actually have to argue a little with that. Luclin has come and gone and PoP is here now, yet most of the armor we can make is Velious era. Of course, I'm not saying that Nightmare and Storm armor should blow stuff from Velious away, but it should at least be comparable enough so people actually have a choice between the two.

I personally think they need to look into Silks, Leathers and Chain the most. In a lot of cases these just aren't worth wearing for a lot of the classes because they have access to something much easier to obtain. For example, I wear Coldain Skin Gloves which I got very early on in Velious. Both the Nightmare and Storm gloves would be a downgrade for me.

---

We're reviewing the current recipe line-up for any gaps in skill progression, and items that aren't appropriately rewarding for their difficulty.

I just hope this isn't something they let linger for a long time like they have previously done. I sort of feel like I'm at a standstill since I don't know what they are going to do with the armor. I offered to make my friend some Hurricane Leather if she supplied some of the peices, but now I am forced to tell her to wait. Leggings might be an upgrade today, but after they change the stats, the upgraded Tunic could turn out to be an even bigger upgrade for her. With as hard as it is to collect the tradeskill stuff in Storms, I don't want to make something only to find out I could've made something even better.

[Prizzle]

I would prefer that cultural was allowed to be *made* by everyone and *worn* by that culture. Pottery works that way and seems to work pretty well to me.

Seems a bit frustrating to me to be cut off of some recipes, especially some that would ease up the progression with no real market value.

[kiztent]

Forgive the stupid question, but why should Skyshrine quested be worse then Kael Quested?

If I recall, the skyshrine armor requires one to be Ally to the CoV, no small feat. ANd the same may be true of Kael quested. Are the armor drops that much harder for Kael Quested?

-Lilosh

Well, simply put, SS is worse than Kael because farming SS is easier than farming Kael. Farming SS armour means you are not KoS to the place you have to farm, the mobs are easier and you don't take any faction hits farming. Kael requires you to take CoV faction hits to farm, and the mobs you farm from are tougher. And, of course, the zone you have to run across (WW) to get to ToV is much easier to traverse if you are not KoS to CoV.

You need to be ally to kromzek to turn in, which isn't the easiest faction in the world to work up either and will require trashing CoV to work up.

[Wyrdlan]

Should tradeskills be looked at as a whole, or as a logical class by class?

A lot of the tradeskill arguments seem to be to be based on BOTH saying:

1) We already screwed up, people would be too mad if we fixed it to be more reasonable.

2) As a whole things are ok, only certain combinations get shafted.


I'm not happy with either statement, which is why I made the suggestion tailoring needs to be reworked much like smithing was. The only problem I had with the smithing changes was that I didn't think it was fair to leave "prenerf" smiths at 250 while dropping everyone else. They just invoked #1 to say they can't drop trivials by 4/5 and drop skills by 4/5 to match. They should have, and they should with tailoring. Yes, I'll miss my hard earned points, but the only ways to make room at the upper end is to scale the upper end or to raise the cap. I have no sympathy for those who claim full mules. If you have a full mule, use it and get your skill up.

Once of the things I'm fighting with right now is seeing the part of the game I worked so hard on for so long starting to get shafted because of poor implementation. I'm starting to resent we aren't suposed to say here, where people care, that something was a stupid idea and implemented even worse.

I try so hard not to degenerate into a Furor-sounding rant, "Don't they KNOW this is going to suck? Don't they PLAY the game?"

My opinions on what's wrong:

Double Penalties

1) Many tradeskill recipes (especially the BD collections) were put in to reward diety. By the same vein, agnostics are dealt with unfairly. Not unfairly in the sense that they didn't get the same upgrades as worshippers, but unfairly in the sense that they didn't get the same upgrades as EACH OTHER.

Compare: Agnostic Dwarf Warrior with Agnostic Troll Warrior
Dwarf can wear Brellium. Troll can wear? Ogre splintmail?

2) Time spent double penalty. Tradeskill recipes should be balanced not only against the time spent farming ingredients but against the time spent to get the skill to make the items. At 242 tailoring, I fail roughly half of all the Teir 2 armor I attempt. Consider that against the time spent farming the pure rain, sandstorm pearls, storm rider skins and bloods, and the rest of it. Then consider the difficulty of getting to the planes. Then consider when I'm done, it's for druids monks and beastlords. It doesn't have enough health for the monks who look at it, and the druids say thanks but Elysian is free and gotten in a faction of the time. The time spent farming for even the "good" peices of makeable gear rarely is comparably to time spent to get an equivalent drop.

Gaps

This was briefly addressed before, but I reject any argument that includes the phrase, "There are only a few combinations left out." Why? Is it so incredibly difficult leave in crap like Holgresh fur recipes but not add Ogre and Troll to barbarian cultural? Is it any harder to believe that halflings can tailor a 51AC breastplate from the ass of a big angry monkey, but only their paladins can figure out how to put it on?

Why are the humans and dwarves so bright at figuring out how to let other wear their armor, but they still can't manage to make over size peices for their larger bretheren? Why can an agnostic dwarf make brell imbued armor but not cazic imbued armor? He doesn't believe in either, he's just working with supplied materials.

Stupidity: Recipes that suck

Alchemy: Cost versus reward largely sucks, a gimmick for the rich
Poisons: Largely in the same place as alchemy. I saw an argument before where a rogue justified poisons by saying he paid like 5pp for 120 damage. That's like a level 12 wizard nuke. Could you imagine the uproar if they added an amber component to wizard nukes?

Holgresh/Velium hound. Thanks for playing, try again.

The 2, 4, 6 slot halfling bags. Considering you have to have a 180ish halfling smith AND a 180+ halfling tailor, and they still take a god awful amount of tufts, AND blue diamonds, thanks for playing. You can maybe make an arguement for the 6 slots, but it's a weak one.

Tailored BD druid armor. Take a peak at Elysian armor, which is common drops from exp mobs soloable by the same druids that would be looking to buy this armor. I'll take "Clues" for 100 Alex.

BD Chain. I think this argument has been covered well enough.

Pottery Imbued Idols. I'm not sure any of them get above the level of "cute", especially for the level of pottery they require to make. They seem to me like crappy knock offs of the Golden Idols.

Troll cultural. Great idea, poor implementation. How about adding a hefty amount of BANE to their results? You start with a 8 24 SSOY and you end up with a 12 22 Honed SSOY. It isn't that it's AWFUL it's that it's not good enough to put the effort into finding a troll smith to make! Add, say, 3 BANE:Froglok there and you got yourself a serious chunk of metal. Most of the troll smithing seems to be just RIGHT THERE but not quite.


----------

I don't like to leave on a complaining streak. Here's what I'd like to see:

1) Make tradeskill results more situational. If you don't want to have to compare the risk versus reward of drop items, why don't you make the uncomparable? Give trolls the gift of BANE. Like your Centi LS now? How about when a troll puts a little Bane: Vampyre on it? That's a decent lammy, you followers of Inny. What would serve your god better than a troll putting some Fire Dmg on it, you followers of bertox could get some Disease dmg. Weapons that are in common use now, let a troll take a crack at bumping them up just a notch, or destroy them trying. How about shields? The devs said the something about improving shields. Let those trolls bump up your damage by adding a proc to your bash.

2) Wood Elf/Halfling cultural. Give us some more imbues and let the armor be more generic as far as who wears it. Oh, and ditch the "patches" and go straight from tufts to woven.

3) Add some resists to BD armor in general. Why does it have to be just AC HP/MANA and a prime stat? Why not add some basic resists across the board to peices besides the bracers?

[Brodybeard]

To start, I would take Kaysha Soulsinger's excellent "Race/Class/Deity Template - who can wear what??" guide, which is at the top of this forum

http://mboards.eqtraders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=53

and where a race/class/deity combination is marked "none", I would add...

FIX THIS!

and where a race/class/deity combination doesn't have any new (post-8th May-patch) cultural armor, I would add...

ADD NEW ARMOR!

and send it to the Dev Team.

[Serenya]

I would prefer that cultural was allowed to be *made* by everyone and *worn* by that culture. Pottery works that way and seems to work pretty well to me.

Seems a bit frustrating to me to be cut off of some recipes, especially some that would ease up the progression with no real market value.

Ah, but to make sense would actually require the reverse. Only someone OF a culture could make their cultural speciality, but there is no reason it couldn't be made such that everyone can use it.

[Flabbo McFattyfatfat]

Is it any harder to believe that halflings can tailor a 51AC breastplate from the ass of a big angry monkey, but only their paladins can figure out how to put it on?

OK, now I rarely laugh out loud when reading a post, bit this was great!

And I thoroughly agree, except about letting humans make big armor. Its too late to remove ogres/trolls from human armor (though it should have been done). Give an agnostic to ogres and barbs. Allow vah shir to wear both.

[Prizzle]

Nothing makes real sense in EQ. How can a piece of cloth decide "Hey! You arent black! You cant wear me, only Erudites can!".

I was talking about widen the choice of recipes for skilling up. One needs to rely on other class for imbues or enchantments. One needs to head to the hometown of given race to have access to cultural combiners. Market is restricted by those who can use the items. It seems to me those restrictions are ample enough.