Master Pottery trophy - fix 060224

[Mitsune Foxfire]

As I read in the patch message, the check for the task has been changed today. It will now use the higher trivial from the two combines <pottery wheel, kiln>. This is a good idea to prevent an exploid but i think some minor detail may have been overseen: The master pottery trophy task does ask to create a number of items but asks for less items to be delivered to the Judge. In case of the to be created Idol of the Tribunal this would now mean that you have to create two idols on the pottery wheel but you need to only fire one in the kiln. You also will safe a couple of high quality fireing sheets on bowls and blue ceramic bands but with the Idol you safe a divine crystalline glaze, which does require at least some work to get.

I am not sure if it was indended to make the task easier with the exploid fix. I do think that the task was very nicely balanced for the required skill. I had fun doing it, digging out the old recipes (I had done all of them before) and searching for the few items needed that are not store-bought to begin with. So: Why not make the Judge ask for ALL the items that have to be created? I was wondering why she does not want them while I did the quest and honestly, I really had no use for extra items that I needed to create anyway.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Can you be more specific and list all the combines you are speaking of?

it shoudl be basically the same amount.

One thing though... for master, adding things may be ok... but there is an absolute limit of 20 elements... so for some of the other tasks... I cannot add any other elements.

[Mitsune Foxfire]

Now is the moment I wish I had made some screenshots...

I did the Master pottery trophy. The list of items to create was (as far as I remember, I did it 2 days ago):
2 pots, 4 small bowls, 4 large bowls, 4 blue ceramic bands, 2 Idols of the Tribunal, 4 hand formed bottles, 4 Spherical bottles, tropy

The list of items to turn in to the judge was (again as far as I remember):
2 pots, 4 small bowls, 2 large bowls, 4 blue ceramic bands, 1 Idol of the Tribunal, 2 hand formed bottles, 2 Spherical bottles, tropy

A number might be off, but you see that some of the items had different create vs. turn in numbers. It should be easy to check that if you can access the task text. (Or maybe someone who is doing this atm can post a screenshot of the task window?)

[Elfdruidess]

Out of the 7 Master quests, Baking and Tailoring only involve single items so no problems there. I haven't done Brewing and Fletching so I can't tell. For the remaining 3:

Master Potter
2 Pot
4 Small Bowl
4 Large Bowl
4 Blue Ceramic Band
2 Idol of the Tribunal - hand in 1 Idol of the Tribunal only
1 Grandmaster Potter’s Suclpter
4 Hand-Formed Bottle - hand in 2 Hand-Formed Bottle only
4 Spherical Bottle - hand in 2 Spherical Bottle only
1 Marble Mortar and Pestle

Master Smith
2 Bundled Acrylia Arrow Shafts - hand in 1 Bundled Acrylia Arrow Shafts only
80 Forged Velium Shurikens - hand in 4 Forged Velium Shurikens only
1 Acrylia Chain Bracelet
1 Small Acrylia Chain Sleeves
1 Pale Velium Long Sword
1 Grandmaster Smith’s Hammer
1 Magnetic Breastplate
1 Black Acrylia Pick
1 Tae Ew Chain Sleeves
1 Black Acrylia Warhammer

Master Jeweler
2 Blackened Pearl Silver Ring
4 Jaded Electrum Bracelet
4 Golden Hematite Choker
1 Palladium Lapis Lazuli Earring
3 Platinum Topaz Necklaces
1 Grandmaster Jeweler’s Eyeglass
1 Velium Diamond Wedding Ring
1 Platinum Blue Diamond Tiara
1 Velium Blue Diamond Bracelet
1 Palladium Diamond Veil

I didn't think much about it. Because out of the 5 examples in Bold, 4 of them are returning the number of combines done instead of the number of items produced (which made sense to me). Only Idol of the Tribunal is abnormal because both the number of combines done and items produced are 2 and only need to hand in 1.

[tuis]

The differences are minor. The fix was a good fix - it tests the skill of the maker in making what he/she is supposed to make.

Maybe its just me, but I've been in such a rush just to get these done that I've been overbuying materials in anticipation of failure and literally throwing stuff away as I run around to make room for the next set. Tossing an unneeded unfired totem or whatever wouldnt phase me in the least. The scorecard gets marked for 'work' that I did and that's what counts.

[Aeght]

Does this mean we have to make a new GM trophy (old recipie) as a skill test, even if we already have one? Or is that taken into account somehow?

[Shelby]

What is the recipe for Idol of the Tribunal? All I find is Golden Idol of the Tribunal and Unfired Idol of the Tribunal.

[Mitsune Foxfire]

Does this mean we have to make a new GM trophy (old recipie) as a skill test, even if we already have one? Or is that taken into account somehow?

No. When you get the task your are told that you can show your old already made trophy to the halfling quest giver to get that part of the quest makred as done.

[Mitsune Foxfire]

What is the recipe for Idol of the Tribunal? All I find is Golden Idol of the Tribunal and Unfired Idol of the Tribunal.

Here is the link: Idol of the Tribunal

(side note: I think the old idols are missing in the recipe list and only accessable via the database search. I had no time to check all the pottery lists, though.)

[mewkus]

I had interpreted the differances between the turn in quantities and the creation quantities as you turn in 1 item from each combine. As shown above smithing has several like that. As does fletching where you make 5 or 10 arrows per combine, but only turn in one of those arrows from each combine. Since each of the bottle combines creates two bottles, you only need to do two combines on each.

The Idols of the Tribunal requirement is different. In this case you do two combines, yet only turn in one.

With regards to it checking the higher of the trivials, I'm not quite sure I understand that. When I did my trophy (on Saturday), I was down to where I had to make the black marble mortar & pestle. I went to bazaar looking for black marble, but my search only turned up the unfired mortar & pestle. I bought it, did the kiln combine for it (trivial at 17) and got credit towards my task.
Was the patch supposed to prevent that, or was there some other potental exploit that I'm not seeing (and prolly don't care to see either)?

I tend to think the test should be changed to require the creation of the unfired item, but then the fired items for the turn in. I think that would fix the problem with someone just making and selling the unfired items for others to easily skate through the trophy test.

[edit: this would also solve the prolem with getting credit for creating pots while doing other combines, e.g. baking]

[Twistagain]

I went to bazaar looking for black marble, but my search only turned up the unfired mortar & pestle. I bought it, did the kiln combine for it (trivial at 17) and got credit towards my task.
Was the patch supposed to prevent that, or was there some other potental exploit that I'm not seeing (and prolly don't care to see either)?

That's exactly what it was to prevent. Basically, you could get the quest and have someone else do all the "hard" combines for you...only firing the items yourself. Of course, I'm not sure it was a MAJOR problem...as you didn't get the quest until your skill was high enough that you shouldn't have many failures...but might as well fix it.

[hangovr]

another issue with master pottery trophy.

I made my 2 Pots while making stew/soup in the oven, because it returned the pot on success/failure. Not that its a gamebreaker, but there's something wrong with getting the reward that way.

[Ngreth Thergn]

The turn in quantities will be fixed next patch. I also made the Idols a bit more clear.
Additionally, if it is not already true. It will check at the unfired for combine, but still require the final product for turnin.

and unfortunately, the next patch is scheduled 3/14

[Mukkul]

I got the Master Potter Test task on Feb 22 but didn't work on it until Feb 25/26 -- my task updated on each of the Kiln combines for me rather than the wheel combines.

Also I notice that there are only 9 items to be made for the Master Potter Test, whereas all the other tests seem to have 10.

[Klaatu_7th]

Not sure of need...

This change makes sense on paper but I'm wondering at what skill level it would actually make sense to use this at...

My 250 potter, not having used the skill in years, is at the bare minimum skill for the Expert (5/7) level test. Excluding the old GM Sculpter, the most difficult (and only non-trivial) item on the entire expert list was the Idol of the Tribunal at 252. (a 95% success rate combine.) The GM Sculpter has the difficult skill check at the kiln anyhow and was thus uneffected by this change.

With possible minor exceptions in the >95% success rate range at 200 skill over trivial, I see no reason why anyone would care to have someone else do combines that are all already at 95% success. Maybe this is more a test design issue than an issue with the mechanics of when credit is given.

If anything, this change makes the test very slightly easier- if everyone was and is doing all combines themselves (there's no reason not to), this is a small protection against a rare kiln failure. Was that the true intent? Or are some of the other skill level tests less...trivial?