An Issue with the Research Skill

[Elfdruidess]

In terms of impact on the specific tradeskill, this is comparable to when strands of ether and bricks of ethereal energy can skill your tailoring and smithing up to the then maxed 250. It involves knowledge of the recipe and is dependent on mob drops off a new expansion. (I'm not counting ethereal temper / curing agent for brewing here since that does not depend on mob drops.)

(1) The Ethereal loophole can be used by every player while research can only be used by the 254ers of 4 classes.
(2) Tailoring and Smithing can make more items to unbalance the game and thus, more of a concern for the devs.
(3) The Ethereal loophole was recipe based and much quicker to correct than what research is facing now which is code-based.
(4) The Ethereal loophole was closed after many months (?? - can't remember exactly) which could be used as a guideline to how long this research glitch in code is gonna take.

Other examples:
(1) Wood Elf and Karana fletching advantage is left in even though it is recipe based.
(2) Druid tracking was broke for a long long time <---- Actually does anyone remember how that was eventually fixed?

[Elfdruidess]

I think I should state my primary assumption which my whole post above is based on.

History has shown us that in terms of tradeskills, "fairness" is not a top priority. Only "unbalancing items" is a top priority. Thus, a few enlightened 254ers per server is not unbalancing, just unfair. But if every 254er skills up to 300, then it is unbalancing and an issue of concern.

That is why the logic of my post above went the way it went. The path to 300 for these 254ers is still prohibitive. An argument for fairness has never gotten us anywhere. Need to prove that this is unbalancing to the game. But how???

As individuals, we may see the incident with the beta vendors as an issue of fairness. But to them, it is an issue of unbalancing the game. It was based on "unbalancing" that they went to all that to rectify it. Not because of "fairness".

[Bobaten]

To get a more accurate picture of how many active players are affected by this bug, check out the the list on EQrankings. Out of the 18 thousand int caster magelos listed, only 18 show 254 skill. Out of the 2680 authentic magelos listed, only 3 have 254 skill. While this certainly is not all of the affected active players, it does much better reflect the truth than the thousands shown by eqplayers. One tenth of one percent of eligible researchers does seem like a minor problem.
Also, don't forget, in order to be affected by this bug in the first place, the player had to choose not to train research when it became available. Most of those with affected characters are simply not "trade skill people". Even if they did discover they could make high level research, they most likely lose interest once they see the number of sub combines needed to make spells. Not to mention the general recommendation to spend 33aa to maximize success at that skill.
The best thing for us to do now is sit back and wait. The more posts we make complaining about this, the more chances that someone who has the bogus skill reads about it, and checks their skill tab. The bug has likely been in the game since the launch of DoN almost a year ago, and the flood of spells hasn't happened yet, and its not likely to happen soon.

[Zacatac]

To get a more accurate picture of how many active players are affected by this bug, check out the the list on EQrankings.

You can't use EQrankings as a viable, "accurate" source of information, it's totally arbitrary. Only a player who (A) makes a Magelo and (B) goes to Eqrankings and puts in that Magelo number will show up. Of course that's not anywhere near the entire population.

Now EQplayers.com on the other hand is where this bug was discovered. Why? Because it has the entire database of every player in the game.

MY SERVER ALONE HAS OVER 2,200 people showing 254 skill.

[Bobaten]

You've missed my point. EQplayers shows every player in the game. If someone started playing EQ in 1999 and quit 6 months later, thier level 20 wizard that never bothered to research would still show up on EQplayers. On the other hand, EQrankings represents players who are actively playing still. Only .1% of the 18000 people who have made a magelo and posted it to eqrankings have 254 skill. This is definitely only a fraction of the characters created, but it better represents the active characters. Yes there really are 2000 characters on your server with 254 skill, but 99% of those characters are inactive (note how most of them don't have stats displayed). It's silly to point at the 2200 when most of those characters are either retired, deleted, or even on accounts that haven't been active for years.
And by the way, this bug wasn't discovered on eqplayers, it was discovered nearly a year ago when the 254's first showed up with DoN, and became more widely known when eqrankings started showing tradeskill levels in June. EQplayers just made the problem look worse than it did before, so it got more press.

[Zacatac]

A small percentage of people will bother to make a magelo for a low level ALT.

An even smaller amount of those people will put that Alt into EQrankings.

I have 2 accounts, over a dozen characters, with a subscription to Magelo, but only 2 of them are in EQrankings. Nobody in my guild has a ALT on Eqrankings, only the mains. And many of them don't even have the mains there.

Using EQrankings as your basis for factual evidence is erroneous in my opinion, as it doesn't reflect anywhere near the full, active character base. You say there is only a few people in all of EQ with 254 showing according to EQrankings. We know that to be far, far from accurate.

As I said before, the number is in the thousands.

[smix]

I think this is becoming quickly a problem much greater than anticipated. A new bazaar vendor today has over 400 high level spells for sale.

400.

This isn't a vendor that I've seen with these before so I think word is getting out. There is no way I can compete with somone slamming out spells in such volume. There goes my legit 600K in spell research down the drain.

[Zacatac]

I think this is becoming quickly a problem much greater than anticipated. A new bazaar vendor today has over 400 high level spells for sale.

I'd have to guess he got those from the PoK bug. I've done about 400 total over the last 2 months. Nobody suddenly gets that many parchments at once unless they have been buying/saving for months.

[smix]

I was thinking that too, but how do you prove it? Dozens of the same spell and stacks of rare meats in even numbers are highly suspicious. I still can't get over the sheer numbers.

[Bobaten]

Zacatac, I fully understand that there are thousands of characters with 254 skill. I'm not arguing that point at all. And yes, I know that most people don't put their low level alts into eqrankings. And plenty of those who enter Magelo data by hand don't bother to update their skills (particularly for a skill that they never even bothered to train in the first place). I never argued that eqrankings was an accurate reflection of the number of 254 researchers. However, I DO believe that these flaws are far less than the eqplayers flaw of showing characters on accounts that no longer exist. But if you insist on staying with the eqplayers data, look at how many of those 254 skill characters show 0 HP/0 AC/0 Mana. When you click those characters you see a last log in date of November 16. This is the date when eqplayers first recorded data, if that date shows up it means they haven't logged in since that date. These are all inactive characters. Sift through the 2200 254's on your server and find out how many of these characters are even around.
Then take my second point. Even IF the character is actively played, the player made the choice to not take up research in the first place. These are the characters you see /oocing "Looking for someone to make the spell 'blah'". They have no interest in researching. Trade skills are evil wastes of time and plat. That's the base from which these 2200 characters were drawn from.
I'm not saying that none of these players will take up research if they discover they have 254 skill. People love the idea of getting something for nothing. But going from having the skill, to making spells is hardly nothing. At 254 skill to have a decent success rate on the 64 and 65 spells they really need some trade skill AA (which isn't even an option for the characters under level 59). And of course, you have to get the parchments in the first place (On a side note, I agree that someone with 400 spells for sale likely got the parchments from the beta merchants, whether or not they earned the skill to make them isn't really relevant).
However, the more we talk about this bug, the more likely word of it will spread to someone who is willing to use the free skill. These characters have had this skill for almost a year now, yet almost no one noticed. There is nothing that we as players can do to stop this bug aside from letting the people who CAN do something know. We have done that now, and as hard as it may be, our role now is to sit back and wait.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Sorry to have made you feel worse.

I really don't know what priority they have put on it.

I was just pointing out the overall effect to the majority of players. Compared to the minority it affects.
The numbers may be large, but like Bobaten has been saying, the number of people that probably do anything with it is vanishingly small.

And realistically... 4+ months since DoD released... if someone in say a raiding guild stored up his/her drops, and already had a good skill, it would be no problem getting 400 onto market. The parchments are not that rare. that is about 1.7 parchments a day with no fails that can easily be achieved. even with 50% failure 3.4 parchments a day is probably no problem at all.

For all I know it is a high priority to them. High priority does not mean that it can be fixed quickly though.

I do mean it is not a bug **I** can fix.

If I could I would have fixed it.

[smix]

Even if it takes a while, I appreciate the updates and knowing that you and them are aware of it. Keep up the good work Ogre.

[Fonceur]

History has shown us that in terms of tradeskills, "fairness" is not a top priority. Only "unbalancing items" is a top priority. Thus, a few enlightened 254ers per server is not unbalancing, just unfair.

Of course should those 254ers at the same time gained access to a tradeskill recipe that allowed them 1 cp profit from store bought items, the servers would be brought down for an emergency patch in 15 minutes...

[Fonceur]

Is anyone's server suddenly flooded with 65 spells?

The Rathe is indeed flooded with level 61-65 spells. There has never been so many people making and selling spells on The Rathe, though it might just be a coincidence.

[Frontallobe]

To me, 400 spells at a one time is certainly within reason. I am in a relatively small family guild and get 80-100 parchments per month from my hunting and from donations from my guildmates. Giving everyone in the guild their GoD spells has helped maintain the flow of parchments. I usually save up my parchments and sub-components and do a large set of spell combines at one time. With my recipe book covering 95% of the spells, it is reasonable quick to crank out a large number of spells provided I've stock piled all the unfun, tedious, time-sink sub-combines.