Doing Tradeskills - Is it worth the time

[Annshadow]

Hi.

Just came back after 5 years and have looked forward to tradeskills.

But as I read through the different tradeskill forums, it seems a serious lack of activity on these boards or any real enthusiasm here.

My RL friends play other games and I don't like WoW but enjoy solo play (I only have an hour or so to play generally).

I thought that a shaman Alchemist would support my necromancer solo character and as I look into tailoring and such (I loved harvesting and mining in other games) it all just seems .... I don't know ... mechanical; no real fun.

So my question is, is it worth the time and effort.

[Utildiin]

If you are limited to an hour a day, I would think probly not worth your while to go for a GM level TS, but, if you enjoy TS then it is fun. So, maybe, work a few skills up a bit, but don't try to go for broke unless or until you get the proverbial wild hair.

[MareeTP]

I love tradeskills. Once I started them. I went 5 years in EQ eschewing them as boring, repetitive and something I swore I would never do. Then SOE, in their collective wisdom, went a year without new AAs. I had no place for the experience to go for a year. In desperation, I started to bake...

Im totally hooked. They are a source of pleasure in the game to me now and to be able to make things that people actually value and use.. thats the icing on the cake.

[Luvimt]

Trade skills are repetitive and can be infuriating at times - I have wanted to kill the RNG many times while maxing my skills.
They are a great way to kill time when no groups can be found though - you can either farm ingredients or actually skill-up instead of sitting in guild hall lfg.
Bear in mind the time needed to research your trade skills. This site is a wealth of info, but with only an hour play time a day, you may find that trade skills are too time consuming for you.
I would reccommend either baking or brewing as a first TS as they are cheap and easier than the rest, but keep everything that has a TS tag in case, like many of us, you get addicted to making stuff and decide to learn all. You can also sell/trade what you dont use to buy ingredients you need.
Good luck and dont blame us If you get the TS bug!

[Andarriel]

hit or miss

Tradeskills are a hit or miss. Take awhile to get to 300 and getting trophy to level 7 is tough but with last exp its alot easier than it used to be now.

Andarriel

[Zopharr]

I think that the dearth of recent postings on the boards is more due to the fact that EQ currently has a playerbase with relatively high longevity (meaning that most players have been playing for several years). So they have already had a lot of the basic questions answered for them, and not a lot of new questions come up until new recipes emerge or a expansion is released. But meanwhile players are more than happy to help new tradeskillers, so don’t be afraid to ask questions. (Search is your friend as well.)

For tradeskills, you need to decide what you want. (“Get Rich Quick” is not an option.) You also need to realize that getting to 300 skill in most tradeskills is going to take six months or a year, unless you hve oodles of plat - so you need to think long-term.

Baking, brewing, and alchemy are good starting ones because you can make items that you can use (stat food and drink, potions) pretty early on, well before you hit 300. (Fletching, too, for bow-users.) Smithing and tailoring will take a lot longer to get to where you can make stuff that you will want. So a shaman alchemist may be a good choice, if there are potions you’d like to use. They can also make some money (not lots, but some) selling potions in bazaar. (Shaman can be fun too - it doesn’t cost much to twink a shaman, and he can solo to the mid-50s pretty easily if required, or box with your SK. Jewelcrafting...probably not a great choice for a first tradsekill. Lots of jewelers out there, you can probably buy what you want cheaper than skilling up.

If you get hooked on tradeskilling, something to consider is trying to limit the number of races you play so you don’t have to skill up everyone in smithing or tailoring for cultural armor. While I went with a troll shaman for the sex appeal of a snare clicky necklace, I really wish I’d gone with ogre so I wouldn’t have had to skill up a third character to 300 smithing to make cultural.

Garshok

P.S. First stop for any serious tradeskilling is the Tradeskill Guides and UI Mods forum. The complete tradeskill guide is invaluable.

[Sylphan]

There could be more to it. The EQ gods now openly admit that tradeskills and group gear are specifically prohibited from ever being good enough to compete with level 70 raid gear, let alone level 80. Not in any combination, under any circumstances, not even if it takes ten times as much effort to make the item as it would to just do the raid. Not only official policy, but openly admitted official policy. A high percentage of those who used to hold a glimmer of hope, now don't, so they have less to say on these boards.

I've lost interest in breaking tradeskill news for the same reason I lost interest in reading guild websites, or the daily updates on Allakhazam's, back in 2003 or so. Most of the new items were so out of reach I couldn't even relate to them, I couldn't possibly suspend disbelief enough to imagine I might someday be able to get gear like that for my own characters -- even most raid guilds couldn't get it, let alone non-raiders. I think about reading EQTraders daily or weekly, but I know that even if there was some fantastic new recipe, it would require a quest in Crystallos to be allowed to even attempt the recipe. So I tend to just skip it.

This doesn't kill tradeskilling completely -- it's still fun for its own sake, and still a nice way to equip lower-level alts sometimes. But if you're asking if it's 'worth the time' as compared to, say, adventuring, or raiding, or spending AAs on things that increase your DPS instead or your tradeskill successes... nope.

Usually you'll make more money if you take all those items that you would have used for skilling up and just sell them to other tradeskillers so they can skill up, instead of using them yourself. There are exceptions of course, and we're very proud on this board in particular when we find ways to make gobs of money for awhile... but in EQ as a whole, in general, you come out way ahead in both platinum and AAs, not to mention bank space, by not doing them.

[Ngreth Thergn]

There could be more to it. The EQ gods now openly admit that tradeskills and group gear are specifically prohibited from ever being good enough to compete with level 70 raid gear, let alone level 80. Not in any combination, under any circumstances, not even if it takes ten times as much effort to make the item as it would to just do the raid. Not only official policy, but openly admitted official policy. A high percentage of those who used to hold a glimmer of hope, now don't, so they have less to say on these boards.

No... we did not say tradeskills cannot make raid level items.

What we are saying is:

For raid stuff you need raid effort. I.E. doing a Raid.

Yes we are saying that spending a long time doing group stuff is not enough to get a raid level item. I may not agree with it myself, but that is the overall team decision. Time alone is not enough. You must do a raid to get raid equivalent items. The level 80 armor with a faycite seal is equivalent to Tier 3 raid armor. A Faycite Seal takes a raid.

And then we ALSO said that we do not WANT you doing 2-3 year old raid content to make something better than second from last expansion raid content. That said, tradeskills actually does have an example where you can do 2-3 year old raid content and some difficult group content to get something reasonable equivalent to second from last expansion raid gear.

[Roanne]

Pick a team.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Pick a team.

Would you care to explain this? Or was it you trying to insult me without breaking the rules, saying that I do not care about tradeskill customers?

My Team choices are to be on the design team for everquest and make tradeskills for you folks, or to not be Working on Everquest, and therefore someone like Absor making tradeskills. And Absor admittedly hates tradeskills. I like them, I just do not get to make all decisions by myself with no other design team input.

[Catweazel]

Would you care to explain this? Or was it you trying to insult me without breaking the rules, saying that I do not care about tradeskill customers?

My Team choices are to be on the design team for everquest and make tradeskills for you folks, or to not be Working on Everquest, and therefore someone like Absor making tradeskills. And Absor admittedly hates tradeskills. I like them, I just do not get to make all decisions by myself with no other design team input.

As one of the very few SOE Developers who offers a public face and willingness to communicate, you set an excellent example of what online gaming customer service could actually be.

I would tend to ignore statements from people who have shown nothing but rudeness and lack of tact for the last 6 months, but that's just me.

[Roanne]

This above all: to thine own self be true.

Ignore what suits you. Stick to the devil you know.

[Candlea]

It's doable...

There is no "pick a team" about what Ngreth says. It is based on what you can do or what you have time to do, just like others have already stated. It's possible to make things if you have the resources, (time, friends to raid with one to three hours every once in a while, skills or lots of plat to get what you need made - usually you can find enough friends to make what you need), to make the items basically equivalent with raid level items. They do require a raid to get the items to make the equipment/seal though.

It would make little sense for someone to have played for 9 years and not get just as much reward out of what is essentially more work tradeskilling than raiding 3-6 days a week, not to get just as much out of the game as someone who raided. I raid 3 times a week, 3-4 hours each night, tradeskill during the day when I'm not working, and find groups, usually with guild members the other time I play. I sell drops I don't need if nobody else wants them, split the money and save almost everything used for tradeskills. I have three accounts and the bank space on most of my alts are filled with deluxe toolboxes, each filled with stuff. I really need to clear out some of the stuff that can be bought to make room for foraged and dropped items, but that's besides the point.

In essence, if you have more than an hour or two to play - even just one night a week, bank space on alts to save some drops for the tradeskills and can possibly find a little more time where you can walk away from the computer, (while doing laundry, etc.), you can work your way up to being able to make some of the sub-combines that will make it cheaper. It's fun, relaxing and addictive. Group a little when you can to get the harder drops. It's possible, but it may take a little more time, to do it in your case Annshadow.

[Ndaara]

It surely CAN be worth the time and effort, if you enjoy it! If you don't - then no, it's not remotely worth the time or effort (significant amounts of both).

I've been playing EQ1 since December 1999. I've never enjoyed raiding (nor had consistent time for it), and over the years, my time's become more and more limited. These days, I keep my trader up as much as server crashing allows, but mostly just to chat with friends while working (I work from home with a nutty schedule). I hardly ever get more than an hour at once, and frankly, with less than an hour's time, EQ1 just isn't worth it for me.

That said - the one thing that helped TONS with making crafting more time-friendly, was getting a second account. I have a spell research mule, an alchemy mule, a smithing mule, etc, all camped out in Crescent Reach. When I get some time, it's much easier to log in the second account and find 8 appropriate bags while zoning the crafter over. And yes, on those rare occasions I get enough time to play, there's a cleric and a shaman on there that I box =)

With Crafting, there's a lot of organization involved: shifting things to the proper mule through shared bank, etc. Be prepared for that to take up your hour of available play time periodically. Well >< frequently...

I hope you give tradeskills a try. If you just need a few things here and there, it's probably "better" to just buy them from someone else. If you enjoy the process, though, it can be very satisfying!

[timwings16]

My advice would be don't do tradeskills unless you find them fun. To me it certainly wouldnt be worth the effort involved otherwise.

There isnt enough money in it to make it worth doing just for plat. Sure you can make a lot eventually but it's a huge time and money investment to get that far. And like another poster said you'd be further ahead by just selling your tradeskill supplies in the bazaar.

I'd try a few of them out up to around 100 skill or so. If you find that fun then go for it. If getting to 100 in a few skills seems difficult or mind numbing then i'd stop. Doing those couple to 100 is one rung on a very tall ladder.