An Issue with the Research Skill

[Zacatac]

Well remember that a level 18 character will have a harder time with it anyway, even with 254 skill, because they won't have the Mastery AAs or Salvage AAs to help out.

So if they wanted to compete with me to make spells to sale, they would be at a disadvantage in terms of costs to make their spells due to more failures and no salvages.

[Larenla Starfire]

Just thought I'd tell you that this occured quite a while ago, I first noticed it when servers were combined. An alt I had started years ago on SolRo got transferred to my normal server BB. I logged her on, lvl 20 mage and hit shift +t, I thought I would set her title "of Solsek Ro" and noticed she had a Master Researcher title. I thought that was pretty odd, and when I checked her skill it was 254. I have made combines of the older spells (Divine Intervention and RGC) but have never tried any of the new research. Yes, it appears that this is in fact her skill lvl, as I have never had her fail a spell.

Larenla Starfire
55 Human Wizard
227 Tailoring
Bristlebane

[Dyllwin]

I did see a jump in spells on the market after the beta merchant fiasco, but not sure if that is due to smuggled illegal parchments or just another crop of researchers reaching the 240-250 skill range.

It may have something to do with the vendor mess, but it is also likely due to the market opening up for spells and smart researchers trying to take advantage of it with their stock Think about how many alts were levelled in that weekend and you can see how much demand was expected in the weeks that followed...

[Zacatac]

Well now it's really getting to be an issue.

1. We have Eqplayers showing thousands of people with 254 skill
2. We have confirmation from 1 player, including screen shots, that they do in fact have 254 skill showing in game.
3. We have another player who has made combines of 227 trivial items successfully with one of these mysterious "254s". A player who has never before done research and shouldn't have anywhere near that level of skill.



I think this needs to become a priority fix now.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Skeptical of the 1 confirmation we have.

254 skill and said she has master researcher title... you don't get master title till 300.

*shrug*

Its not happening on my server or my market would be flooded. Its not.

Since the OP vanished with no confirmation let me ask this.

Is anyone's server suddenly flooded with 65 spells?

[Larenla Starfire]

Sorry, you are correct it is Expert Researcher (I don't actually have any other tradeskills over 200, so wasn't sure of the order.)

I didn't really want to try and make any higher lvl combines to see if I could skill her up. Honestly they look daunting, but I guess I can mess around with them tomorrow and see how it goes.

I would suspect that most people are not even aware of this. I mean how often do you log on alts you haven't played in years that are low lvl and check their skills? Then add to that many people like me who did realize it, but after looking at the new research decided it appeared to be way to much effort.

Larenla Starfire
55 Human Wizard
227 Tailoring
Bristlebane

[smix]

On my server there are no researchers with more than a 254 skill, but tons of low levels with that.

I would imagine that either not many people know about this or it's simply a visual bug. Either that it's the skill they are stuck with until the put a point into research to skill up. I can't imagine that somone hasn't gained a point to 255 if they were using a low level alt to make spells. That said, I am noticing a bunch of low level characters in Corathus Creep at the spell vendors lately.

It would be nice if we could get a confirmation either way if this truly is a bug, and if it is how quickly it's going to get fixed.

[Larenla Starfire]

Here's a picture of my lvl 20 mage doing a 227 trivial spell combine. As you can see she has a skill of 254, and says she can't gain skill from making this item. I am not really sure if she has ever trained in research. It was years ago that I made her, but I suspect that she has not.



Again, I first noticed this when the servers were combined, but since I never saw anything mentioned about it figured it was a limited mistake and really thought nothing of it. I suppose I'm just not smart enough to have pl'd her to 70, bought the aa's and made a killing on 65 spells long before anyone could have made them with any success.

Anyways, tomorrow I will attempt to get her a skill up. I can't imagine why she couldn't, from what I can tell this isn't merely a visual bug.

Larenla Starfire
55 Human Wizard
227 Tailoring
Bristlebane

[Dranul]

Even if it's a visual bug, the leaderboards are the primary reason to subscribe to EQPlayers, and if you have a host of visual bugs (We've seen 300 AT, 400 Fletching, etc, etc), then it's just not worth it.

[Ngreth Thergn]

The issue was passed on when I said it was.

While I do understand that to "you" it is of the highest priority.
Realistically it affects a small portion of the user base (which happens to include "you") so it is not necessarily at the top of the list of things to get done.

Truthfully I do not know where it is in the priority list, just that I have reported it.

[Frontallobe]

... Realistically it affects a small portion of the user base (which happens to include "you") so it is not necessarily at the top of the list of things to get done. ...

Not to be a smart aleck, but I can't resist;

OMG, isn't this the same as what we first heard when the beta tradeskill vendors showed up in PoK on the live servers?

[Zacatac]

The only reason it doesn't affect me more is because many of the 2200+ characters on my server with 254 skill are -

(A) Alts of people who are unaware they have 254 skill
(B) Characters on old, cancelled accounts who don't play anymore
(C) They have looked at the research for DoD and decided it was too much work for them.

But I wouldn't consider 2000 characters per server to be "a small portion".

[Ndaara]

while it's true that this doesn't appear to be a current exploit, most likely because the folks with the skill simply don't know they have it, it IS as big a deal as the recent POK Beta vendors, which ALSO affected a relatively small portion of the player base.

it is exactly the same thing: a small number of players getting a HUGE advantage over the rest of the players, through no actions of their own, through a bug that has been reported.

my guess is that it's not nearly so easy a bug to fix. a simple rollback isn't going to do anything. the ONLY way to fix it is to check each character by hand, yes? sounds labor intensive to me, which i'm sure is why it's not been fixed yet.

that said, it really hasn't affected my own spell research. i'm at 250 skill now and although i worked really hard to get there, there are only 4 or 5 people on my server making these spells now and i, at least, have tried to focus on spells the other guys aren't making (/wave qaladar!). i'm pleased as heck with my research skill now, and hoping that the level 69 and 70 spell recipes go in very soon. i'm sick of not having my spells =p

if all active researchers use /bug and /feedback regularly, perhaps that will be enough to /poke them into action?

[Qaladar Bragollach]

We got 60 spells in LoY. We got 65 spells in DoD. Thats a big time gap between those 2 events. Expect a just as a large time gap before we get researchable 70's.

Expect ancients about the time the universe suffers entropy death.

[Simba]

My prediction:

They won't fix it for a long, long time.

Examples of other "low priority" items that, for all intents and purposes get ignored:

i) Coarse Spider Silk issue for GM Armor for Silk wearers. This armor was to be available in DoN. It's been placed into the low priority bucket as part of a larger project to revamp drops altogether.

ii) Not a tradeskill issue but relevant in how low priority issues are handled is the Mage Fire Pet issue. This pet has been broken/useless since Kunark. Feedbacks and /bugs have been done, the developers have acknowledged that yes it is a problem, yet this Pet continues each expansion - with newer versions of the same broken pet. Kunark was 5 years ago.

In my opinion, questioning the significance of errors on their part as they affect the playerbase is appropriate, but ignoring them to the tune of 2 to 5 expansions is absurd. There needs to be a policy or procedure put in place to more immediately address problems like this in the interim between the time it is noticed and acknowlged, and the official fix.

Simba