Forthcoming revision of trivial failures - discussion

[eqNichola]

From the Future Plans part of Game Updates on everquestlive.com :

We will be looking at the chance of failure for tradeskill recipes. We are aware of the concerns of trades folk in EverQuest, and it is on our schedule to review things such as the fact that masters of trade skills can fail the easiest recipes. That doesn't necessarily mean that we plan to change it, but we will most certainly look it over - and probably will change it .

Let's take a moment to assess: what we THINK will happen, what we WANT to happen, and what SHOULD happen

The key phrase above is, I think, "the fact that masters of trade skills can fail the easiest recipes". This leads me to suspect that what is being planned is no-fail cut off points for ABSOLUTE levels of item, and skill. For example, once your skill is > 200, then any item trivial < 50 becomes no fail.

What I personally would prefer to see, but what is not suggested by the above wording, would be one of two things:

- Any item with T < skill/2 is no fail
or
- Any item with T < skill - some number... 100? 150? is no fail

I would be happy for no-fail combines to be a privilege of the specialist (ie skill > 200), although I can see people being unhappy that they should still fail metal bits at 200 smithing (for example).

One thing we and they wil have to watch for is possible economy leaks. It's a relatively well-known fact that JCers can make a small profit from combines involving enchanted platinum, for example, but it's also well-known that many recipes have their vendor sellbacks tuned to incorporate the existing 95% success rate cap. This has the potential to be Mature Cheese all over again, if you can stomach the thought (haha).

Finally, branching out into the world of the 'should'... well, stacked combines anyone? Surely once you have achieved your grandmastery, and you have your no-fail privilege, it's not too much to ask to be able to combine a stack of A with a stack of B to make a stack of C, instead of having to make 20 (no-fail, but still 20!) A+B->C combines? But this I think is a bridge too far for the current game engine.

Thoughts?

[Cravin]

I have been thinking on this a bit and while I would live to have many many items be no fail I could easily live with a .05% failure on items that are X over trivial or even X over trivial because I am at 200 or greater skill. I am of the mind that at the point I can no longer gain any skills from a combines that it might see the 5% failure rate from there and thats really more than acceptable to ME(notice I said ME) but it sure would be nice to have that failure % drop as my skill increases by doing other harder combines. just me but it kind of burned me that I had to do an extra backpack full of emeralds to compensate for not 1 but 2 5% sub comebine failures when makeing solstice robes. Anyways those are my thoughts.

[ChaseFV]

Warning!!! INC Tangent!

What if we were to make the reduction or elimination of failures of trivial items related to having a Grandmaster's Trophy equipped? And in turn make the trophy attempt a skill-restriced combine of 250 only.

This would eliminate the likelihood of people abusing the trivial removal for profit, as GM's by and large have more effective ways to make money. This will also increase the incentive to push to 250, by making the GM trophy something that you can't have until you get there (rather than zerg-rushing plat at attempts until you finally succeed on one). This would also provide an additional incentive to obtain the Grandmaster trophy (not that the stats aren't helpful and the bag isn't really nice, but still...). It would also finally provide a reason for people the 1750 club members to create multiple trophies.

I think that eliminating or reducing to 1% the potential failure rates of items under 100 trivial would be reasonable. Not a whole lot of expensive things crafted at those levels, but it covers many of the subcombines.

[Delfontes]

I would think 100 below your skill should become no fail.

Makes it simple, at 250 with geerlok anything under 152 trivial is auto no-fail.

Would make sub-combines a whole lot easier.

[Itek]

Ok... two thoughts....

What do I expect to happen?

if (trivial <= [skill - number]) then no-fail

number... anything from 50 to 200, with 100 being a good guess to bet on.

What SHOULD happen?

Oh, here we go..

I -agree- that even the BEST people in real life occasionally mess up and ruin stuff. So I think that no-fail combines should be reserved for quests and stuff like celestial essence.

BIG BUT, if you DO fail a "trivial" combine ... you should get a skill improvement for it.

BIG AND, if you DO fail a "multiple yield" recipe... you should have a chance of getting SOME yield, under the total yield.

Wolfgang Puck doesn't often FAIL to slice a cake. If he DOES somehow mess up and cut a cake badly, so that some of the cake is "unplateable" (meaning you wouldn't serve it to paying customers) but if he made 2 crooked cuts, or dumped a slice on the floor... the other 6 slices would still be good. And he might decide to get a different knife the next time he slices that type of cake. (skill improvement)

Your mileage and opinions may vary. Personally I am sooo looking forward to the patch. "Shared bank space" ... I nearly danced nekkid in the street... and no one wants that, least of all my neighbors.

[Moonlilly]

BIG BUT, if you DO fail a "trivial" combine ... you should get a skill improvement for it.

I would have been in the 1750 club ages ago if that were true. I think thats a bit unbalancing and will never happen.

BIG AND, if you DO fail a "multiple yield" recipe... you should have a chance of getting SOME yield, under the total yield.

Now this I can agree on.

It's a relatively well-known fact that JCers can make a small profit from combines involving enchanted platinum

/rant on
Fix it. No other tradeskill can have a profit made from items purchased off vendors and whenever a mistake is made (as with the mature cheese) it is nerfed ASAP. Sure the sellback price should be higher since the metal is enchanted but it shouldn't be higher than the purchase price of the components.
/rant off

I think trival<=[skill-150]=No fail would be more appropriate since this will cover most of the miniscule combines well all wonder why we fail at (such as cutting cake, metal bits, etc.) without getting into the higher and more productive recipies. Anything smaller will kill what little market is left for anyone bringing up their trade. Example: Lets say the new no fail is skill minus 100. A newbie monk farms up enough stuff for an attempt at a Wu's mask. Who is he going to go to? Tailor with a skill of 120 who has a good shot at making the mask but might fail or Tailor 250 who is GUARNTEED to succeed?

Personally I get queesy whenever SoE looks at anything tradeskill related.

[mewkus]

The combines that need to be looked at for being flagged as NoFail-IfSkillHighEnough are those combines which are subcombines (ie Metal Bits, Heady Kiola, Clumps of Dough, Folded Sheets, etc). Combines that are for a final product should have a failure potential.

I do think the quantity of items produced on some combines should also be affected by your skill. For instance, when making regular arrows, instead of getting either 0 (fail) or 5 (succeed), you should get anywhere from 0 (you're well under trivial) to upwards of 10 (if you're way over trivial).

[Craftah]

/rant on
Fix it. No other tradeskill can have a profit made from items purchased off vendors and whenever a mistake is made (as with the mature cheese) it is nerfed ASAP. Sure the sellback price should be higher since the metal is enchanted but it shouldn't be higher than the purchase price of the components.
/rant off

If they do 'fix it' then they should fix it this way:[list][*]Anything that ends up being in the no fail range (if implemented that way) should sell for exactly the cost of the components.[*]Anything above the no fail range should remain as it is.[/list:u]
That fixes the problem as you can't macro for profit, yet still 'keeps it fair' for the new JC folks.

[Sayleth]

I dont see what the big deal would be in making stuff 50 or 100 points below your adjusted skill no fail.

Sayleth

[Tudani]

50 points below your skill means that anything 200 or under (or 202 if they decide to go with your modified skill) is no fail. This covers a great many recipies...acrylia reinforced armor, all old cultural armor, fine plate, all PoP cam parts, many tempers, poison vials, casserole dishes, and ofc, most steps of the shawl quests. That's not ballanced, nor reasonable. What everybody wants most I think is the things that are just rediculous to fail on. Such as clump of dough, or slicing cakes (2 fails in a row at 220ish skill /sigh), or metal bits, or studs, or leather padding or other stupid things that just are silly. Or just cause wrist pain. For that much, 150 points below skill level is more than enough, and I'd be perfectly happy with that, and in fact that's an understatement, i'd be dancing for joy about that. Taking the chance of "oops I screwed up" out makes it too easy, boring even. But making it so I don't think "I spend x many hours and y much pp to get to 250 baking and I can't mix egg and milk and flour together in a bowl?!?!" And that is what I hope VI gives us.

[Itek]

BIG BUT, if you DO fail a "trivial" combine ... you should get a skill improvement for it.

I would have been in the 1750 club ages ago if that were true. I think thats a bit unbalancing and will never happen.

BIG AND, if you DO fail a "multiple yield" recipe... you should have a chance of getting SOME yield, under the total yield.

Now this I can agree on.

It's a relatively well-known fact that JCers can make a small profit from combines involving enchanted platinum

/rant on
Fix it. No other tradeskill can have a profit made from items purchased off vendors and whenever a mistake is made (as with the mature cheese) it is nerfed ASAP. Sure the sellback price should be higher since the metal is enchanted but it shouldn't be higher than the purchase price of the components.
/rant off

Moon-

Um... ok perhaps I wasn't clear. I was talking about a system where "5% minimum failure" simply didn't happen. Where "failure" at highly trivial tasks would be EXTREMELY rare. (As rare as Wolfgang Puck failing to cut a carrot properly.)

As for the rant... Primal Scream. I would discuss it, but only in Primal. Here it's just begging to get locked or banned.

Also you are mistaken. You -can- make a profit on Baking from vendor sold items strictly selling to the vendor. It's not much for the time and effort invested. But it's there. (like 3 silver or less for 20 combines on average)

[Verdandi]

As for where the cut-off should be, I'd say it should simply be anything that would ordinarily have been at the minimum failure rate. Things should be pretty well balanced for that already, leaving only issues like the jewelcraft buy-back rate for examination.

[Frerin the Smith]

Well, we already have a "true" tradeskill that has no fail combines incorporated.

Tailoring has silk threads and silk swatches designated "No Fail". The simplest thing to do, therefore, is to examine each trade skill and designate certain combines to be no fail due to the trivial and usefulness of the item.

As blacksmithing is the skill I'm most familiar with, I'll use that as an example.

Metal bits - make the trivial 15 and no fail. Metal bits are not an end product and with a trivial of 21 or lower, should be considered for No Fail Status

Sheet metal - make the trivial 21 and no fail. Same consideration as above.

Ore conversion - make the trivial 15 and no fail. Same consideration as above.

Move the rusty weapon conversions to 22 trivial to 35 trivial.

Make the following adjustments to vendor buy back:

Metal bits - 5 silver
Sheet metal - 2 gold
Metal rings - 1 gold
Small piece of ore - 5 silver
Small brick of ore - 1 gold
Large brick of ore - 2 gold

These would be my changes to smithing.