An Issue with the Research Skill

[Felicite]

I have an issue with the Research Skill that I think you should all be aware of.

I have been reporting for a few weeks now the rather large number of people with 254 Research skill showing on the EQ Players Leaderboards (someone said it was 8000 characters serverwide). I think I assumed that this was an error in EQPlayers transfer of game data. But, in the course of demonstrating this problem, I pointed to my level 20 Mage on Bristlebane.. that I have not touched in over 2 years (I play on FV, only on FV). She shows as 254 on the Leaderboards.

Well.. long story short I logged her in today to "show" that she has a skill of zero, and it turns out that *in game* she has a skill of 254. I have not played her in years, and even if I had trained her Research skill in those days it was level capped.

This is a frightening turn of events. This is a very expensive skill to raise. If I switched back to Bristlebane and got one skill up to 255, I would be one of the top five Researchers on that Server.

Thread with details: http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/...essage.id=2893

I am sorry if this should be Primal Scream, or General.. feel free to move. But it is a real issue with a Tradeskill in game and I feel people should know about.

[Ngreth Thergn]

I will poke Maddoc about this.

I do not know if there will be any good solution for this will have to see when the people that have been in SOE much longer than me look into it.

[Elfdruidess]

If that 254 is an indicator of them never having trained in research, checking if they ever put that 1st point into research at a guildmaster may be able to tell the difference?

Another way, which I'm not sure is possible to trace or not, is to determine if these 254 chars ever had a skill raised msg from 253 to 254.

[Zacatac]

I posted my theory on SoE boards about this issue.

All of these 254's are actually INT casters, over level 16, who never trained a single point in research. Mostly mules, alts, etc. I thought it was an EQplayers problem. My server alone had over 2000 of them listed (I was on page 116!).

But the fact it actually shows up as 254 in game is something unexpected! And incredibly wrong, considering I'm at 253 right now and it took me many hours and 250k to skill up that high.

I'm not sure what can be done, but to find out that anyone with a low level ALT could get 254 for doing nothing, compared to the many hours I've spent, make me rather upset.

Felicite, I'm on BB. I'd be curious to find out more about this. Maybe do some testing. Like donating some cash to your mage and have you go buy the book and supplies to make some runic parchment solutions and see if you actually can do it.

[Felicite]

I posted my theory on SoE boards about this issue.

All of these 254's are actually INT casters, over level 16, who never trained a single point in research. Mostly mules, alts, etc. I thought it was an EQplayers problem. My server alone had over 2000 of them listed (I was on page 116!).

But the fact it actually shows up as 254 in game is something unexpected! And incredibly wrong, considering I'm at 253 right now and it took me many hours and 250k to skill up that high.

I'm not sure what can be done, but to find out that anyone with a low level ALT could get 254 for doing nothing, compared to the many hours I've spent, make me rather upset.

Felicite, I'm on BB. I'd be curious to find out more about this. Maybe do some testing. Like donating some cash to your mage and have you go buy the book and supplies to make some runic parchment solutions and see if you actually can do it.

I am more than a little upset myself. And that is a very kind offer.. I was actually considering doing a deal with the dark side just to see.

She is naked.. going to see what INT items I can find on my BB characters.

I might take you up on it. If I can break my current depressive desire to just cancel my accounts.

[Elfdruidess]

I went back to check some older threads and post #9 on this thread actually said the same thing back on Dec 20 (although we read it differently then):
http://mboards.eqtraders.com/eq/showthread.php?t=24419

Perhaps Sklak can help as well?

[Elfdruidess]

The problem looks worse now that EQPlayers is lvl searchable.

There are 3 players with a research skill at lvl 1. One of them at 155 skill.

One player at lvl 11 has a research skill at 200.

Another player at lvl 14 also has a research skill at 200.

There are more than 100 players with a research skill at lvl 15. Most of them with a skill of 16. And one of them is at 254.

Although research is no longer lvl capped, I thought you still can't start research until lvl 16?

- Edit -
Never mind about the lvl 15s with research skill of 16. I just realized these could be the cases where the players died and lost their lvl.

[opal_sky]

this is bad news indeed.

When I was looking up an advanced researcher on EQPlayers, I thought that these legions of baby 254 skill researchers should be impossible, according to the research cap which gives every young spellcaster grief. I assumed this must be some kind of test data that had infiltrated the player database.

The powers-that-be were competent enough to perform a witch-hunt and delete honestly gained items from players, because they *might* have been tainted by being the 4th generation of a dubious economic transaction ... I'm sure they can exert their database expertise and clean up this pile of error.

Spell Researcher Zephyria, skill 212
Povar

[Qaladar Bragollach]

I still haven't seen any confirmation that this is not a display bug. Can ANYONE confirm that they can ACTUALLY do anything with their 254 skill other than look at it in the skill window?

[GnekroeGnomicon]

Just another reason that I am not racing to 300 anymore... the beta merchants drew blood first, now something like this makes me feel totally marginalized as a tradeskiller.

Wish I had an int caster over 16 that I haven't trained in research... but alas I do not. I hope you are right Qaladar that it is merely a display bug... but I am guessing that if the leader boards are showing it ranked, then it is probably the official level of the skill.

*EDIT* Just remembered I have a mage on Saryrn, that I haven't touched in over a year, don't think I trained her in research will check as well when I get home.

[Simba]

Yeah I stopped the frenzy too. Between the fact that I'm certain some vendors are popping out stolen smudged 5 at a time, there's the fact I'm averaging 60 to 80 Runics per skillup these days (above 280 now and it's absurd for each step.)

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Well considering the insane profit margins on 65 spells... I would expect the market to be flooded with spells if there were THAT many people with 254 skill already.

Its not happening on my server... not by a long shot. So I'm reluctant to believe this. STILL waiting on some confirmation... all it would take is for someone with this 254 skill to attempt making a few inks. Should take all of 5 minutes.

Let me reflect on some past history. Nowadays, you automatically gain new skills when you reach the appropriate level for them. That is a fairly recent feature. It used to be that when you reached the appropriate level you had to go to a trainer and train a point in that skill before you gained it and could actually start using and gaining skill in it. The magic number used to represent the condition of a skill that was available to you but not trained at a trainer yet was 254.

I strongly suspect that anyone showing this magic 254 is in fact experiencing a display bug as a result of that legacy code. I suspect their skill is actually 0. Inks have a trivial of 31. At a skill of 0 you only have a 35% chance of success on them and with decent int a 100% chance of skillup.

Could someone please please try combining an ink. I am willing to bet $10 that you will fail the combine even at only 31 trivial and that you will immediately skillup to 1.

[Bobaten]

Well, when the skill caps broke on tracking for bards and druids they could still track at 254 skill. So I expect people really have these skills. However, since the reason these characters have this skill is that they weren't played, for the vast majority, they still haven't been logged in. In fact most of them are probably on accounts that are not even active. So its not like there are really thousands of active characters out there with 254 skill undercutting our skill ups. Since I would bet that most of them belong to former EQ players, who don't even know or care that this happened.
But I must say skilling up to 250 was a minor event for me (though the title was nice), skilling up to 255 to be above the pack was the goal I got excited about.

[Zacatac]

Hit 256 tonight, so I'm ahead of the pack of 254s now.

[Sharrien]

On Maelin I've seen at least 6 different sellers (presumably from 6 different researchers) offering lvl 65 spells, probably more actually. The market is quite flooded. I won't be making any special push to 300 (think I'm at 253 atm), but will just do combines from parchments that come my way from drops or for guildies looking to fill out their spellbooks.

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.