Tinking Mastery

[Xislaben]

Some in-depth discussion on just this topic on this thread on the EQLive forums. One of the more interesting things mentioned was the potential social repercussions of implementing this, not just a coding aspect. How long might it be before Iksar, Vah'shir, Barbarians, etc, sent up the hue and cry "No fair, where is MY racial AA?"
/shudder

Iksar - AA Louis Vuitton
When used all members of the Iksar's Raid/Guild and all PC's in zone are informed that they (the Iksar) may not be made into a purse, and must stop and bask in the sun for 5 ticks.

Vah'shir - AA Preening Fury
When used all PC's within a range of 150 must zoom out to 3rd person view and admire themselves for 5 ticks.

Barbarians - AA Chill Wind
When used a chill wind blows, the barbarian's kilt begins to flutter and rise. All PC's are blinded for 5 ticks.

[Rawckett]

Lame

The excuse that other races will complain if gnomes get tinkering mastery AA is quite lame. I am willing to be that 75% of the population that plays EQ has toons of multiple races. This is an AA pertaining to tradeskills, and such the tinkers are being discriminated against but this being the only tradeskill that does not have a mastery ability. (Unless research skill does not have 1 either, I do not know for sure)

[Evram2]

Arcane Tongues -This ability reduces the chances of failing research combinations by 10, 25, and 50 percent.

[Ngreth Thergn]

The excuse that other races will complain if gnomes get tinkering mastery AA is quite lame. I am willing to be that 75% of the population that plays EQ has toons of multiple races. This is an AA pertaining to tradeskills, and such the tinkers are being discriminated against but this being the only tradeskill that does not have a mastery ability. (Unless research skill does not have 1 either, I do not know for sure)

You can call it lame if you want.

But it is actually something we DO have to consider. People quit over things like that, no mater how trivial one person thinks it is, another person thinks it is so vital that they would quit over it.

[Aleksandros]

One of many factors the folks at SoE have to take into consideration. Social Engineering on the scale involved is a task I absolutely do NOT envy. Game mechanics, re-coding, double- and triple-checking potentially economy-devastating recipes, watching for the latest ugliness and exploit-beating from the evil Intra-Game Empire.

Several posts here on other race AAs were firmly tongue-in-cheek, but folks going ballistic over "apparent favoritism" is a very real problem that will be examined. It ain't all code, there's people involved (end-users, like you and me) to gum up the works

[Xislaben]

Several posts here on other race AAs were firmly tongue-in-cheek, but folks going ballistic over "apparent favoritism" is a very real problem that will be examined. It ain't all code, there's people involved (end-users, like you and me) to gum up the works

Clearly the Iksar AA Louis Vuitton is too powerful, being zonewide or guild/raidwide, and should be limited to a range of say 150 like the Vah'Shir AA Preening Fury.

Poisonmaking and Alchemy would have to get mastery too, at the very least.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Poisonmaking and Alchemy would have to get mastery too, at the very least.

They have one Because those could be "class" based wich was already well established.

[MedailMeadmezzer-eci]

ok so here is a question, why not make a new NPC gnome in ak'anon with some random gnome name who would give out 3 progresive "quests" to only true race gnomes? i meen most surely you can call somthing in the code to check the players race (items do that). Upon the compleation of the "quests" the gnome only player would recive a skill point in a hidden AA in tinkering mastery. This is already being done with DON aa's and with the curse of the blood aa's you would just have to refine the quest dude to respond only to gnomes. the "quests" would require the gnome to prove there mastery over the tinkering skill.
IE quest 1:

"introduction to higher tinkering"
description:
gnome_NPC_001 wants you to prove to him that you have the abitly to reach a higher level of tinkering
tasks:
loot 5 coilled springs -------- POI
turn in 5 coiled springs --------ak'anon (or the zone where the nps is)
loot 10 clockwork gnome gears -------- Coranthus creep
turn in 10 gnome work gears--------ak'anon (or the zone where the nps is)
make some random 250 trival tinkering item --------- any zone
turn in 250 trival tinkering item--------ak'anon (or the zone where the nps is)
make some 275 tinkering item
turn in 275 tinkering item--------ak'anon (or the zone where the nps is)

reward:
one point in the aa "advanced tinkering methods" (this would be the hidden aa in the OOW tab)

next level would be somthing harder etc. you put in a non said level restion of 46 by putting some part of the quest in POI.

[Twistagain]

The problem with that, as I see it, is that other masteries are simply AAs...people spent 3-6-9 AA points on them. You would be doing a quest. The question is, which is better? If there were someway to "spend" unspent AAs by hailing an NPC who only responds to gnomes...

[Rawckett]

ok so here is a question, why not make a new NPC gnome in ak'anon with some random gnome name who would give out 3 progresive "quests" to only true race gnomes? i meen most surely you can call somthing in the code to check the players race (items do that). Upon the compleation of the "quests" the gnome only player would recive a skill point in a hidden AA in tinkering mastery. This is already being done with DON aa's and with the curse of the blood aa's you would just have to refine the quest dude to respond only to gnomes. the "quests" would require the gnome to prove there mastery over the tinkering skill.
IE quest 1:

"introduction to higher tinkering"
description:
gnome_NPC_001 wants you to prove to him that you have the abitly to reach a higher level of tinkering
tasks:
loot 5 coilled springs -------- POI
turn in 5 coiled springs --------ak'anon (or the zone where the nps is)
loot 10 clockwork gnome gears -------- Coranthus creep
turn in 10 gnome work gears--------ak'anon (or the zone where the nps is)
make some random 250 trival tinkering item --------- any zone
turn in 250 trival tinkering item--------ak'anon (or the zone where the nps is)
make some 275 tinkering item
turn in 275 tinkering item--------ak'anon (or the zone where the nps is)

reward:
one point in the aa "advanced tinkering methods" (this would be the hidden aa in the OOW tab)

next level would be somthing harder etc. you put in a non said level restion of 46 by putting some part of the quest in POI.

They should have just introduced a Tinkering Mastery AA will of the other Tradeskill AAs when they were initially introduced.

But this is a decent idea, although I am sure you can't have a quest NPC only talk to a gnome, or else all the other races will start complaining about that too.

Also, AA's aren't available until level 51 I believe anyway, so need to worry about that level restriction part.

[Xislaben]

They have one Because those could be "class" based wich was already well established.

OIC, I just peaked at the Omens aa tabs for shammies and rogs, when in fact they have mastery in their class tabs /sigh. This news (to me anyways) is even more depressing.

You could make Tinkering mastery a class-based AA for all classes that can play as Gnomes, and then restrict its purchasing to only gnomes of those classes, as you restrict some AA's by level. It would be an awkward fix though, with some class/race combos having AA's that they never could actually purchase.

Then again, just as you 'hide' some AA's for say DoN progression, MPG Trial resist, and Blood Curse, you could also 'hide' this mastery aa from any race that is not a gnome, preventing them from both seeing it or being able to spend points in it. Maybe even make it triggerable by hailing some npc or handing it a no-drop tinkered item in game to get it, checking to see if you are indeed a gnome. This would give you both a functional and an aesthetically pleasing in-the-ui solution no?

I hope that enough code already exists within the game to make something like this plausible with maybe a little additional coding. If so, then it's a matter of desirability. IE, do the poor ever-punted gnomes deserve to have some mastery aa's when everybody else gets them, especially given the very high trivials on new tinkered items, and the rarity of some of the drops needed to make them?

[Bobaten]

The real problem is this:
If you give one race a special ability, other races will want one too.
That's all it comes down to keeping the customers happy.
But it goes beyond that. Take it to the next step, and come up with a set of racial aa's for each race. Then you get people upset by the old standard complaint about changing the rules in midgame.
Think about the complaints when Tunare worshippers got special arrows, while Karana worshippers got nothing (complaints that led to Karana worshippers getting special arrows a year later). This has now grown into the problem that anyone who is not a woodelf or does not worship Karana has a nearly impossible path to 300 skill in fletching.
Then you have the gnomes who are not tinkers. They would be annoyed if their special racial aa was "wasted" on tinkering mastery.
Furthermore, as a gnome, and as a tinker, I would be annoyed that if my special racial aa was wasted on tinkering mastery. High trivials are Sony's way of controlling success rates. And they have shown in the past (with oow augments, and apparently GM trophies) that if things change that would increase that success rate they will add minimum failure chances to make sure it stays where it is. What this means is that the addition of a tinkering mastery aa would coincide with success caps on the high trivial items.
In short, the OoW mastery aa's were outdated by the DoN skill cap raise. Anyone with 300 skill (or even 290 skill) sees zero additional success from having the aa. The aa just lets people with lower skills achieve the same success rate as people with higher skills (much the same way as the Luclin raid drop skill modifiers do). So adding the skill now (and lets face it, the absolute earliest a new aa would be added isn't "now" but in 4 months when a new expansion comes out), simply changes the rules again, making an easier path to making high end items.

[ork]

comment

well see heres how i see it, people need to stop thinking that this is a racial aa. its tradeskill aa. i mean if you construe this as a racial aa then we should already have the aa since not every class can make poisons or alchemy. anyway i just think not adding this aa because soe is so worried about people leaving the game is a rather petty and a slap in the face.

[Ngreth Thergn]

I guess you are entitled to think that way.

But then putting it in, and NOT considering other people, would be considered by them a slap in the face. You would likely here exactly the same complaint from many non gnomes. "Not making a racial AA for us also is a slap in the face"

So I guess someone was going to get slapped in the face no matter what we did.

And according to Maddoc... gnomes are fun to slap around!

[Xislaben]

The real problem is this:
If you give one race a special ability, other races will want one too.

And as soon as they get a racial tradeskill I will champion their call to aquire mastery!

Then you have the gnomes who are not tinkers. They would be annoyed if their special racial aa was "wasted" on tinkering mastery.
Furthermore, as a gnome, and as a tinker, I would be annoyed that if my special racial aa was wasted on tinkering mastery.

What! These aren't gnomes! Seriously though, no matter what soe devs do or do not do, some segment of the eq population is going to whine about it vociferously.

High trivials are Sony's way of controlling success rates.

Now this is the best argument. Knowing that there are no mastery aa's for tinkering the existing combines could have been carefully trivialized to make their difficulty appropriate considering the lack of mastery aa's. I do not like it, but it's probably true, and would mean that the new dodh combines are meant to be the hardest combines in the game.

What this means is that the addition of a tinkering mastery aa would coincide with success caps on the high trivial items.
In short, the OoW mastery aa's were outdated by the DoN skill cap raise. Anyone with 300 skill (or even 290 skill) sees zero additional success from having the aa.

This is not true in the case of tinkering (according to the eqtrader calculator).

Skill = 300
Mod = 5%
Trivial = 404
Mastery = 0
Success chance = 63.5%

Skill = 300
Mod = 5%
Trivial = 404
Mastery = 3
Success chance = 81.75%

Now granted that's 1 combine, but you typically pick up mastery aa's a little ways before you skill to 300. If you pick up your mastery aa's before you hit 250+ then you increase your chances of success by 25% on 350+ triv items.

Skill = 250
Mod = 5%
Trivial = 351
Mastery = 0
Success chance = 50.25%

Skill = 250
Mod = 5%
Trivial = 351
Mastery = 3
Success chance = 75.125%