Skill Cap Increase

[ghostman]

We are coming to the point where we are overdue for a skill cap increase, thinking 350 across the board.

Discuss...

[Aldier]

Will not happen until 2 things are met in Ngreth's opinion.

1) a new code can be written for the skill up formula that allows for people to reach the new cap without unreasonable skill up rates.

2) a viable skill up path exists within every tradeskill for people to be able to achieve the new cap. Currently, I think Jewelry, Pottery, Smithing, Tailoring, Alchemy, Research, Baking are ok on this, Tinkering possibly as well. Brewing and Fletching and Poison Making I think would still need some more work.

It is not likely to be a mid expansion addition. SOE will want to reap the benefits of charging extra for it as part of an expansion, since it also is a big bullet point they can use for marketing.

[Zolina]

1. should be easy actually: use the existing formula but flatten it so that skills above 300 have the same chance to skill up as skills at 300.

2. would require a lot of hard work.

[Nolrog]

Will not happen until 2 things are met in Ngreth's opinion.

1) a new code can be written for the skill up formula that allows for people to reach the new cap without unreasonable skill up rates.

2) a viable skill up path exists within every tradeskill for people to be able to achieve the new cap. Currently, I think Jewelry, Pottery, Smithing, Tailoring, Alchemy, Research, Baking are ok on this, Tinkering possibly as well. Brewing and Fletching and Poison Making I think would still need some more work.

It is not likely to be a mid expansion addition. SOE will want to reap the benefits of charging extra for it as part of an expansion, since it also is a big bullet point they can use for marketing.

I think that Ngreth will do something with the mastery AAs before he allows the skills to go up too.

[Aldier]

1. should be easy actually: use the existing formula but flatten it so that skills above 300 have the same chance to skill up as skills at 300.

1 still requires a code change which is at times, hard to get because it requires convincing the higher ups that the coders time is worth looking at the issue.

I think that Ngreth will do something with the mastery AAs before he allows the skills to go up too.

I agree the game would be better off without them, as is also Ngreth's feeling. However, to remove these would also require a massive adjustment across the board of trivials in a lot of tradeskills which would take more time than creating viable skill up paths. Also, these AA have been in the game since Luclin era. The argument could be made though, that you can leave the mastery aa in under for the same reason hybrids and priests have to spend aa to get Research to 300. It shows an extra dedication to the studies of your craft. I think though, that the percentages would need to come down on them if they remained. This would also require a code change, which goes back to the first problem.

[Zopharr]

Overdue? Considering that tradeskills were capped at 250 for a smidge under six years (March 99 through February 05), we're not 'due' for a cap increase until January 2011. And I will be quite happy to wait until then, and longer.

Call me biased, but I fail to see a lot of value added for upping the skill caps. I have three 300 smiths, and don't relish the impending timesink of having to get the 4500-odd rare drops necessary to skill them up to 350. (Much less other skills.) We have enough timesinks in EQ besides raising the caps for the sake of raising the caps.

Add also to it - what is the quality of the gear that will be made? We all saw what happened with the elegant armor controversy. Without a carrot of some significantly better gear/stat food/etc. - and I see SOE severely limiting Ngreth's ability to improve that too much - I don't see a lot of appeal to increasing tradeskill caps. Lots of stick, not much carrot.

[thomenthechanter]

Lots of stick, not much carrot.

Amen. People have asked me why I haven't continued my march to 2100, and in short, the answer is "because it's not worth it at this point in time."

[Paerien]

Well, with the new weapons going 500+ in skill, a higher cap would sure make chances at success higher. But I guess the quality of the Elegant/Sublime armor and the high-end weapons just don't match up against Crystallos or raid gear. So even though I might have a better chance of success, I still can't sell them well. I've sold a few 81/85 weapon sets, but just 4 or 5. Surprisingly, I've sold more Elegant/Sublime weapons than I have Stalwart/Venerable, but that may be because one guy just bought three Elegant whips from me the other night.

I'm starting to find out, after advertising them quite a bit, that many folks already have better than the brand new Stalwart/Venerable, so I'm starting to wonder where plat can be made with TS'ing, anymore.

[Aldier]

Well, with the new weapons going 500+ in skill, a higher cap would sure make chances at success higher. But I guess the quality of the Elegant/Sublime armor and the high-end weapons just don't match up against Crystallos or raid gear. So even though I might have a better chance of success, I still can't sell them well. I've sold a few 81/85 weapon sets, but just 4 or 5. Surprisingly, I've sold more Elegant/Sublime weapons than I have Stalwart/Venerable, but that may be because one guy just bought three Elegant whips from me the other night.

I'm starting to find out, after advertising them quite a bit, that many folks already have better than the brand new Stalwart/Venerable, so I'm starting to wonder where plat can be made with TS'ing, anymore.

The trivials are set as high as they are for 2 reasons. One is to make them difficult and encourage people to tradeskill and not just hope to get lucky. The other reason is there is a set success rate that Ngreth wants for the items. Taking 300 skill + 15% mod + mastery3 into account, thats the rate that Ngreth (or his superiors, we do not know for sure) want when combined with the drop rate of the parts to control the flow of these weapons into the game.

The problem we are faced with is there is extra effort/time put in to crafting a weapon vs. looting it off of a group mob. Sadly, the best we can expect is in a crafted weapon that does not require a raid to obtain parts for is group level. The poor dmg/dly ratios on the crafted weapons are not because they are crafted, but because the entire group game weapon ratios are too low. They ran into a problem with the cultural armor where people could craft armor much better than SOE intended players to be able to make, combined with an over abundance of materials already in the game and entering the game to give a huge boost to initial production and the sticker shock of some of those pieces from the huge increase in gear stats that came with SoF.

They do not want crafted to be superior to group weapons/drops in all manners. The problem is, then it is often inferior and therefore not used as in the case of weapons. However, for jewelry, the ability to create solid pieces to compliment or supplement drops is working. All be it a bit difficult to project stats to others when trying to sell, the items are fairly good.

Increases in the skill cap would not require farming 4500 some odd rare drops. The smithing skill up path is based off of farming ores. Tailoring would have silks and pelts to work with. Jewelry has differet versions of gems to cut, items to create with the newer metals.

I am not in favor of raising the skill cap just for the sake of trying to give tradeskillers something new to work on. I feel that quests like the Coldain Shawl, Aid Grimel, and Eron's Jewelry should be the types of new things for tradeskillers to work on. Only once the paths are all laid out and the other issues with tradeskills are resolved then the skill cap can be increased to adjust to a new level for an adjusting level of what can be successfully created at a reasonable rate without being too simple for the quality of item created.

[Paerien]

The trivials are set as high as they are for 2 reasons. One is to make them difficult and encourage people to tradeskill and not just hope to get lucky. The other reason is there is a set success rate that Ngreth wants for the items. Taking 300 skill + 15% mod + mastery3 into account, thats the rate that Ngreth (or his superiors, we do not know for sure) want when combined with the drop rate of the parts to control the flow of these weapons into the game.

I'm fine with a certain % chance of success, making the cultural armor/weapons/aug. The problem I have, is that they really aren't flowing into the game. When I advertise them, people who might be interested in Stalwart/Venerable, have me link them. After I do, at least 3 out of 4 say something similar to: "Oh, thanks, I have better", or "My 2.0 is better". The fourth person can't afford it.

The problem we are faced with is there is extra effort/time put in to crafting a weapon vs. looting it off of a group mob. Sadly, the best we can expect is in a crafted weapon that does not require a raid to obtain parts for is group level. The poor dmg/dly ratios on the crafted weapons are not because they are crafted, but because the entire group game weapon ratios are too low. They ran into a problem with the cultural armor where people could craft armor much better than SOE intended players to be able to make, combined with an over abundance of materials already in the game and entering the game to give a huge boost to initial production and the sticker shock of some of those pieces from the huge increase in gear stats that came with SoF.

But then why even introduce them? It was an improvement for me, but that's just because I'm gimpy! I guess I don't see the point to introducing crafted weapons that aren't going to compete with group-droppable weapons. I understand there are some folks like me who these are an improvement for, but I think we're in the vast minority.[/QUOTE]

They do not want crafted to be superior to group weapons/drops in all manners. The problem is, then it is often inferior and therefore not used as in the case of weapons. However, for jewelry, the ability to create solid pieces to compliment or supplement drops is working. All be it a bit difficult to project stats to others when trying to sell, the items are fairly good.

Nor do I think they should be superior. I think they did the best they could, making them competitive, but not surpass group weapons. But as someone who loves tradeskilling, I don't have much demand for my services anymore.

Increases in the skill cap would not require farming 4500 some odd rare drops. The smithing skill up path is based off of farming ores. Tailoring would have silks and pelts to work with. Jewelry has differet versions of gems to cut, items to create with the newer metals.

I am not in favor of raising the skill cap just for the sake of trying to give tradeskillers something new to work on. I feel that quests like the Coldain Shawl, Aid Grimel, and Eron's Jewelry should be the types of new things for tradeskillers to work on. Only once the paths are all laid out and the other issues with tradeskills are resolved then the skill cap can be increased to adjust to a new level for an adjusting level of what can be successfully created at a reasonable rate without being too simple for the quality of item created.

I can buy this. If I had more tradeskilling quests, I'd have fun doing those.

[Nolrog]

I agree the game would be better off without them, as is also Ngreth's feeling. However, to remove these would also require a massive adjustment across the board of trivials in a lot of tradeskills which would take more time than creating viable skill up paths. Also, these AA have been in the game since Luclin era. The argument could be made though, that you can leave the mastery aa in under for the same reason hybrids and priests have to spend aa to get Research to 300. It shows an extra dedication to the studies of your craft. I think though, that the percentages would need to come down on them if they remained. This would also require a code change, which goes back to the first problem.

Aye, that's the problem. In order to keep the current success rate, Ngreth would have to redo a lot of the trivials, which I'm sure would be a huge under taking. But still, he mentions from time-to-time how much he hates those AAs, so I wouldn't be surprised to see them go at some point.

[Zopharr]

Increases in the skill cap would not require farming 4500 some odd rare drops. The smithing skill up path is based off of farming ores. Tailoring would have silks and pelts to work with. Jewelry has differet versions of gems to cut, items to create with the newer metals.

OK, not 'rare' drops, per se - but still, farming roughly 1500 ores per 'toon, assuming skill-up rates remain at the same level...hard to see the fun.

I am not in favor of raising the skill cap just for the sake of trying to give tradeskillers something new to work on. I feel that quests like the Coldain Shawl, Aid Grimel, and Eron's Jewelry should be the types of new things for tradeskillers to work on.

That's the trick - there needs to be a carrot.

While Coldain Shawl, Aid Grimel, and Eron's Jewelry were all great in the day, though - my cleric still has his shawl in the bank - there also should be (IMO) carrots for folks who just focus on one or two tradeskills.

OK, there wasn’t a skill cap increase with SoF – but if there was, that was gear that (for me at least) would have made me think ‘yeah, farming those ore is a pain, but…it’s worth it!’ SoF smithing, for example (discounting the whole Last Blood issue) ... smiths could make gear comparable to T2 armor, gear groupers wouldn’t mind wearing. (My troll and my cleric wore several pieces until I was able to finally farm steamcores for them several months later.) JC also got a fair bit of love when SoF came out – yes, I upgraded to T3 and BB stuff later, but wore palladium trio gear for about nine months.

If skill level caps get increased, I would hope that we would get some ‘wow’ recipes for every tradeskill as a carrot. Being able to make (current expansion) T2/T3 level group gear…30 AC or 120 HP augs…whatever...something to make it seem like there's a reason to do it other than just hitting 350 for the sake of being maxed.

But if all we get is a skill cap increase, but no new recipes at the same time to help make the effort seem worth it … meh. I’d prefer not to farm 1500 ore per toon just to be able to make the same items a little bit better. Which would be sad, since I’ve had Zopharr maxed on whatever the smithing skill cap has been for almost seven years.

[Kahmon]

It is not likely to be a mid expansion addition. SOE will want to reap the benefits of charging extra for it as part of an expansion, since it also is a big bullet point they can use for marketing.

The caps went up from 250 to 300 with the release of DoN, but was not tied to the expansion. As a result, tradeskillers had to choose between seeing the new expansion, or working on skills. I choose to TS and as a result, fell behind in DoN progression. It's a choice that I now feel was the wrong one, and with the release of SoD I have chosen to blow off Hybrid research for a while.

I hope that the caps do not go up, but if they do, I hope it can be done mid-expansion as something to keep people busy when they have already done much of what they want to.

One reason I'd hate to see the caps raised at all is that I'd feel ripped off from pushing trophys to level 7. I was at 300 and burned another 500-1000 combines per skill to max out trophys. If the caps go up, the same effort has to be done again. One solution to this would be to give trophys an 8th level which can be pushed for at 300.

[Prexis]

[QUOTE=Zopharr;224623]Overdue? Considering that tradeskills were capped at 250 for a smidge under six years (March 99 through February 05), we're not 'due' for a cap increase until January 2011. And I will be quite happy to wait until then, and longer.

The skills were originally capped at 200. I don't remember at what point that changed though.