Tradeskill Mastery

[Deviator]

if you refund the mastery aa and raise the skill cap then you need to raise all refunded people to the new cap as well to make up for losing their bonus they worked for, just refunding them something they may not need to spend elsewhere wouldnt be a good solution.

[Veril]

And yes I really do hate this AA. I have over and over considered refunding it and either greatly adjusting it down, or removing it. Note the considered in there. I certainly have not made any final decisions because...

**IF** I was to remove this, there would be an adjustment to MANY trivials to get them back down to a more reasonable range. It will be a huge amount of work for me, not even including the fact that it would like be rather unpopular.

To change this simply requires that you work out the formula for the changes to give the same success chances. then you apply that formula to every skill point and use that to adjust all th trivials of that skill point at the same time.

I'll give an explanation of my meaning without using the right numbers to give a deel

Something with a trivial of 500 has a 50% chance of success with Mastery 3 and 15% tradeskill trophy.

Assume each level of Master get changed to a +10 skill modifier, then you need to do the calculation to see what a 330+15% trophey needs as a skill to get a 50% chance of success.

Once you have that number every item that has a 500 trivial gets changed to the new value.

perform the same calculation for items from 350-600 (in excel) and produce a suitable script to change all items at specific trivials to new trivials. from 350 up.
update <table> set trivial=325 where trivial = 350
update <table> set trivial=326 where trivial = 351
etc

I hope all that makes sense. I really can't see any issue in reworking old trivials to new trivials

[Ngreth Thergn]

if you refund the mastery aa and raise the skill cap then you need to raise all refunded people to the new cap as well to make up for losing their bonus they worked for, just refunding them something they may not need to spend elsewhere wouldnt be a good solution.

(I am not totally disagreeing with you here but....)

A refund *is* refunding your work

you gained 18 AA's. You spent effort to get 18 AA's. I give you back 18 AA's you lost no "work" because you are getting all of that work back. What you "lost" was the "easy" combines, not the work you spent to get to the easy combines, not all the benefit you reaped while you had it. What you may have lost is the ability to actually SKIP doing some work that I think you should have done (getting your skill to max) and while you had this you potentially had the ability to do LESS work than people without the AA... so you SAVED work... not worked more. You may have been able to do items with bonus skillups earlier and easier since you had the AA.

so really you reap benefits AND get a full refund of the effort you put in for those benefits.

(After writing this... I see that maybe I am totally disagreeing with you...)

[Adita]

You Sir are wrong and you really need to stop your so called fixing of things years old.

[Sharrien]

While I agree that it isn't good for low-skilled characters to gain huge advantages by having mastery AA, I am at max skill or nearly in every tradeskill that I spent AA in, so I would be very disappointed to lose those AA. They are what raises me from someone who just maxed skill to a real master of the trade and the person that you go to for hard combines. If they were refunded I would hope that something else would be put in place with a similar boost to our skills.

Maybe a min skill should be required to get each level of mastery AA.

[Ngreth Thergn]

You Sir are wrong and you really need to stop your so called fixing of things years old.

Ah. so fix no bugs?

Got it!

Or you just mean, fix nothing that is broken that happen to benefit you?

[Ngreth Thergn]

This AA really causes problems. It was extremely poor future sight on the person who made it. It is what causes ridiculous trivials (527!!!) and really prevent growth in tradeskills. It makes it very unwise for me to raise skill caps. It is really horribly harming tradeskills.

[Sharrien]

You Sir are wrong and you really need to stop your so called fixing of things years old.

Even tho I disagree with Ngreth this time, we should always look at things in EQ that affect balance even if it is old. Don't complain to him about trying to improve tradeskills, that's what he is there for.

[Deviator]

(I am not totally disagreeing with you here but....)

A refund *is* refunding your work

you gained 18 AA's. You spent effort to get 18 AA's. I give you back 18 AA's you lost no "work" because you are getting all of that work back. What you "lost" was the "easy" combines, not the work you spent to get to the easy combines, not all the benefit you reaped while you had it. What you may have lost is the ability to actually SKIP doing some work that I think you should have done (getting your skill to max) and while you had this you potentially had the ability to do LESS work than people without the AA... so you SAVED work... not worked more. You may have been able to do items with bonus skillups earlier and easier since you had the AA.

so really you reap benefits AND get a full refund of the effort you put in for those benefits.

(After writing this... I see that maybe I am totally disagreeing with you...)

the thing here is that i would be pushed back to the same level as everyone else with only max skill and no aa's. i then have to work back up to be ahead of them again(if a cap increase replaces the AA's)

just an fyi i only have tailoring mastery 2 and alchemy mastery 3 so its not that big of a deal to me as i havent maxed them all like others have(and im playing WoW now instead of EQ but i still like to troll ), i just hate seeing people lose out on stuff they worked on to get ahead (like the cultural nerf that never happened). refunding the AA doesnt allow me to respend them and still be ahead of those people... yes i now have more AA, but if i only have useless AA's left to put them into, then it does me no good to have even worked for them in the first place, so it wouldn't be considered "refunded work".

[KyrosKrane]

I think the consensus is that if the masteries were removed, they would be replaced by something else that would still give you an edge in tradeskills over other players without that replacement. The only question is, what form would that new edge take?

[Catweazel]

The concept of Tradeskill Mastery should be something I gain as a result of mastering tradeskills not killing monsters. I should be able to be a level 80 Smith rather than a level 80 killer of monsters.

Assuming that the whole Tradeskill system cannot be changed to an experience based system at this late stage, then at least Mastery could be changed to represent my skill at being an Artisan.

It would be great to expand the Trophy concept so that to prove my mastery I had to make a number of increasingly more difficult recipes. Trade masters should be able to make things regular tradeskillers cannot. This could include specific recipes or a chance to make higher quality items.

Depending on the type of new Mastery "quest", those people who bought AA based Mastery could choose a refund or choose to start at a point further ahead in the quest.

[Sharrien]

I think the consensus is that if the masteries were removed, they would be replaced by something else that would still give you an edge in tradeskills over other players without that replacement. The only question is, what form would that new edge take?

Suggestions:
- Current mastery AA with skill requirements to get the AA
- Add tradeskill tasks to the requirements to purchase tradeskill AA
- AA that raises skill caps above max
- Grandmaster trophies with higher % bonus (however hopefully something other than just adding another 1000 combines to reach the next level...task based maybe?)
- Smithing Insight Mastery - "You notice a fatal flaw in your components and stop yourself just in time to fix it." Essentially an AA that would give you a % chance to halt a combine after clicking the button that would have failed. Would suggest that max skill be required to purchase.
- Guild affiliation (nothing to do or conflict with our regular guilds, just didn't know what else to call it) that gives bonuses to tradeskills or allows access to exclusive suppliers or special containers in a zone similar to the guild hall
- Partnership AA - Give ability to group up with another skilled partner for a combine that combines their skills and gives a bonus toward success (wild one there, just brainstorming)
- Limitation on trivials above a certain level if you don't have mastery AA. Example being you might be able to combine an Elegant Sleeves without is, but would need mastery AA to be able to attempt the combine for legs or chest.

For just about all tradeskill AA, I believe that you should have to prove yourself in that skill first before you can purchase. If the mechanics of AA purchasing doesn't support skill checks, then maybe they would have to be awarded by a NPC who we know can detect skill levels (recipe venders in PoK or Eron).

[Aldier]

There are some out there though, just to argue another point about mastery aa, that would welcome the refund. These people played and maxed out their aa and did not tradeskill but got them cause, it was all that was left and then left the game or switched characters and are coming back. This could be a benefit to some people to have those AA refunded so they could apply them to more useful aa that have come out since.

I have mastery aa only in tailoring and smithing, because with the trivials where they are, they are needed to be successful at making the top armors. If the aa were refunded and the trivials brought down, I think it would help tradeskilling and give us more room to grow.

Under current setup... 300 skill + 15% trophy/mod + mastery3... you have a 95% chance to succeed on anything up to 408 trivial. Without mastery, its 402. So losing the mastery aa will only affect those recipes whose trivials FAR exceed that point as far as the ability to improve your chances of success.

For an 80% success rate with max skill and max mod, you need a 422 trivial. So we are talking a reduction of maybe 20-30 trivial on the Sublime/Elegant items and refunding the mastery aa.

460 trivials (Sublime/Elegant BP) with 300+15%+mastery3 = 75.75% chance of success. To keep that rate, you can get 75.5% chance of success on a 428 trivial with no mastery.

I am only looking at the implications of mastery on a max skill person attempting very high trivial combines and I know that is not the only place the mastery aa help, but from the numbers I am seeing, I would be in favor of refunding the mastery aa but not until a replacement can be worked out. Something, be it a reduced %age on the mastery aa or another benefit to distinguish between a max skill and a true master skilled player. A quest to raise tradeskill cap, or something else maybe a better mod item than the 15% (or expand the trophy).

[Aldier]

Suggestions:
- Current mastery AA with skill requirements to get the AA
- Add tradeskill tasks to the requirements to purchase tradeskill AA
- AA that raises skill caps above max
- Grandmaster trophies with higher % bonus (however hopefully something other than just adding another 1000 combines to reach the next level...task based maybe?)
- Smithing Insight Mastery - "You notice a fatal flaw in your components and stop yourself just in time to fix it." Essentially an AA that would give you a % chance to halt a combine after clicking the button that would have failed. Would suggest that max skill be required to purchase.
- Guild affiliation (nothing to do or conflict with our regular guilds, just didn't know what else to call it) that gives bonuses to tradeskills or allows access to exclusive suppliers or special containers in a zone similar to the guild hall
- Partnership AA - Give ability to group up with another skilled partner for a combine that combines their skills and gives a bonus toward success (wild one there, just brainstorming)
- Limitation on trivials above a certain level if you don't have mastery AA. Example being you might be able to combine an Elegant Sleeves without is, but would need mastery AA to be able to attempt the combine for legs or chest.

For just about all tradeskill AA, I believe that you should have to prove yourself in that skill first before you can purchase. If the mechanics of AA purchasing doesn't support skill checks, then maybe they would have to be awarded by a NPC who we know can detect skill levels (recipe venders in PoK or Eron).

The AA suggestions you made would be a good addition to the other thread about AAs. Some of your ideas are already mentioned there too.

The Tinkering Mastery AA requires a gnome to complete a quest (haven't done it yet to know how involved it is) then it opens the aa that you can then spend points in like any other mastery aa. So quests to unlock aa can be done.

[Nolrog]

You Sir are wrong and you really need to stop your so called fixing of things years old.

You sir are incredibly rude and obnoxious to the Ogre who has done more for tradeskills than any 3 other people combined.