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  • Tradeskillers need power increases too

    I originally wrote this post in response to a thread at The Newbie Zone, but I think it holds more relevance for us here. The poster of that thread does inadvertently raise a good point, though. Simply put, tradeskillers' abilities to craft items have not improved in proportion to, say, combat classes' abilities to defeat mobs.

    Let's take a Fleeting Quiver as an example -- hardly an uber item by any measure, yet still a crafted item in strong demand. It takes one ungodly rare component (the High Quality Lion Skin), plus a few semi-rarish components. The trivial for this item is 222. Although the recipe has existed since the first day of EQ, the quiver wasn't actually makable in-game until around the Velious era, if memory serves. So for the purposes of this discussion, I will consider it a Velious-era item.

    Let's look at what improvements a tradeskiller has gotten since then. In Velious, your maximum possible tailoring skill was 250. Today, it's still 250.

    In Velious, you didn't have geerloks (which are items that give a 5% bonus to a skill in your tradeskill). I believe they were introduced around Luclin, though I could be wrong. However, the benefit of them is minimal since your maximum modified skill in a tradeskill is still capped at 252. In addition, to the best of our current knowledge ("our" referring to the folks who post at the EQTraders message boards), there is a "soft cap" of sorts on how high your skill should be to get the maximum chance of success on a combine. Simply put, once you are above that cap, you chance to succeed is identical, whether you're one point over or 100 points over.

    There are other improvements tradeskillers have gotten (such as New Tanaan Crafting Mastery, which allows you to increase more than one tradeskill over 200), but only one has actually improved the chance of success on combines -- Jewel Crafting Mastery. That's an enchanter-only class AA that requires a cumulative minimum of level 59 and 18 AA points spent on prerequisites, plus an additional 18 points to earn three ranks in this skill. For a total of 36AA, enchanters get a 50% reduction in fail rates for JC combines only. No other class gets this ability, or anything remotely similar, so it doesn't count as a generally available improvement.

    Barring this one exception (JCM), there is nothing in the game that makes tradeskill combines more likely to succeed. A 250-skill tailor in the Velious era has precisely the same chance to make a Fleeting Quiver as does a 250-skill tailor today.

    Contrast that with equipment you might earn while going on raids. As of the Velious era, the top warrior breastplate (as ranked by the default Allakhazam search) you could earn was:

    Breastplate of Eradication
    AC: +55
    HP: +100
    Str: +10 Dex: +15 Sta: +20 Cha: +10 Agi: +15
    FR: +8 DR: +8 CR: +8 MR: +8 PR: +8

    As of today's era, the top warrior breastplate would probably be:

    Raex's Chestplate of Destruction
    AC: +100
    HP: +250
    Str: +30 Dex: +25 Sta: +30 Agi: +25
    FR: +20 DR: +20 CR: +20 MR: +20 PR: +20

    The AC has almost doubled, the HP has gone up by 150%, resists have gone up by a similar amount ... The difference is immeasurable. This same difference is evident not only in armor, but in weapons (increase in damage and hate generation and maintenance), in levels (five extra levels with their commensurate power boost), in AA's (tremendous new offensive and defensive abilities), and in the ability to earn and obtain experience and items more easily (older mobs become trivially easy to kill).

    Now, compare the Breastplate of Eradication to a widely-available twink item (and a tradeskilled one, to boot):

    Fierce Heraldic Breastplate
    AC: +51
    HP: +80
    Str: +10 Dex: +5 Sta: +5

    That Fierce Heraldic Breastplate is looking kind of close to the Breastplate of Eradication, if you discount the saves. Not the same by any means, but consider that the Fierce Heraldic is an item you can acquire just by strolling into the bazaar, while the Eradication used to require being in one of the top raiding guilds on your server.

    What did tradeskillers get during this same time shift? Well ... not much.

    We got geerloks and other skill-increasing items (such as tradeskill trophies, or a few rare items that offer 10% or 15% skill boost), but the fact is, none of these items is significantly better than a geerlok to a 250 tradeskiller. They're of benefit to people skilling up, sure -- a 15% bonus in your skill makes it MUCH easier and cheaper to raise your skill, both by allowing some skill-restricted combines earlier and by reducing fail rates. However, once you've reached 240 skill, any skill mod would do just fine, since 240 + 5% > 252, which is the hard cap on tradeskills.

    We got NTCM, as mentioned before, but that doesn't really affect the potential to succeed on making an item; rather, it just gives you a realistic possibility (NOT a probability) of succeeding on an otherwise-impossible combine (if you had already exceeded 200 skill in another tradeskill). In other words, it only gives you a shot at the item; it doesn't make it more probable you will succeed at that item.

    We got new items and skill-up routes -- but again, the worthwhile items are almost all trivial over 250, and success rates appear to be at best around 50% at maximum skill. Items with trivials under 250 (and with correspondingly higher success rates) fall into one or more of a few categories. Either it's a skill-up item (as with shadowscream armor), or it's a low- to mid-level twink item (as with LDoN armors, though they are also popular for skill-ups), or else it's largely useless save for RP flavor (as with almost all non-stat baking and brewing).

    Again, my chance to succeed at a baking or smithing or pottery combine that was introduced in Velious is identical to my chance of success now, given equal skill then and now. Shouldn't I have learned something in terms of how to NOT burn my bread in the oven since then?

    I guess the point is that tradeskillers need ways to improve just as much as raid tanks or nuking wizzies or healing clerics or what have you. Maybe in the next expansion, we could get an option to raise a tradeskill to 300, or 350, or higher -- though this would require a commensurate recoding to ensure that the chance of success always increases as your skill goes up, no matter whether the item you are making is trivial or not. Maybe we will get skills (or even items) that modify success and fail rates directly, regardless of skill -- sort of JCM-on-a-stick, if you will. =) I don't know what would work out best, but the point remains. Tradeskillers need power increases too.
    Sir KyrosKrane Sylvanblade
    Master Artisan (300 + GM Trophy in all) of Luclin (Veeshan)
    Master Fisherman (200) and possibly Drunk (2xx + 20%), not sober enough to tell!
    Lightbringer, Redeemer, and Valiant servant of Erollisi Marr

  • #2
    Ignoring the

    Farwater Plate Breastplate
    MAGIC ITEM
    Slot: CHEST
    AC: 65
    STR: +12 DEX: +10 STA: +8 WIS: +8 INT: +8 HP: +120
    MANA: +50
    SV DISEASE: +15 SV POISON: +15
    Recommended level of 63
    Required level of 46
    WT: 8.0 Size: MEDIUM
    Class: WAR CLR PAL SHD BRD
    Race: ALL

    ?

    While I agree that it's not the same power jump as the statue BP vs. Time BP but the heraldic armors aren't velius era either.

    Comment


    • #3
      Not at all, Sumamael. I chose the Fierce Heraldic deliberately, as it is a very common and popular item. I wanted an item that is easy to get and kind of similar to a once-extremely high-end BP.

      The Farwater BP (and other elemental items, for that matter) are the subject of my little rant -- the difficulty on them is so high that you cannot realistically expect a success on a combine. The rarity of the drops needed to make it (and the difficulty of obtaining said drops if you are not elemental-flagged) only exacerbates the problem.

      The same holds true for Heraldic and other cultural armors, for Mistletoe Sickles, and so on, though the components are far easier to get. (I mention smithing items because those are the ones I am most familiar with.)

      I'm not saying the Fierce Heraldic is the best droppable BP available. Rather, it's a very common and widely-available item, and it's not too dissimilar to the BP of Eradication.
      Sir KyrosKrane Sylvanblade
      Master Artisan (300 + GM Trophy in all) of Luclin (Veeshan)
      Master Fisherman (200) and possibly Drunk (2xx + 20%), not sober enough to tell!
      Lightbringer, Redeemer, and Valiant servant of Erollisi Marr

      Comment


      • #4
        Raex's Chestplate of Destruction isn't something easy to get or common either.....

        Just for the sake of fair comparison you know.

        Comment


        • #5
          still really not the equivalent upgrade.
          dropped is almost double.
          tradeskilled is +25% for a warrior. the +int/wis mana makes it better for a pally than a warrior but thats a itemizing error.

          i think they're should be a few more items that lower lvl ppl can make that are still good just time intensive like picnics. tae ew has some rather rare stuff as well. elemental plane items are a little pointless if you have to bazaar farm it all and end up not making any money ater 50% failures.

          Maker of Picnics.
          Cooker of things best left unidentified.
          "Grimrose points to the sky. Look! Up in the sky, it's a bird, no, a plane, no it's Picnic-Man. It's Emiamn, a mild mannered tradeskiller by day but daring handsome crime fighter at night. Spreading peace and joy to norrath with his mighty Picnics!"

          Comment


          • #6
            My point is not to compare the power of the breastplates as it stands today. Rather, it's that the time and effort it took to get the BP of Eradication during the Velious era is comparable to the time and effort it would take today to get a Raex BP. They are each representative of the top gear of their respective era.

            I included the Fierce BP in the comparison merely to point out that you can now buy purely for plat a droppable BP that is similar to the BPoE. This indicates some measure of dilution in power -- the BPoE is no longer "uber;" it is now just "great." This comparison is emphasized by the "uberness" of the Raex BP.

            The question I'm posing is why we haven't seen a similiar increase in our ability to craft items between then and now. I'm not discussing the recipes themselves, mind you -- we've gotten many new recipes that make some quite powerful items since the Velious era. However, our chance of success at a combine of trivial X when our skill is Y is the same today as it was back then.

            The example I gave in my first post was the Fleeting Quiver -- your chance of success on a quiver at skill 250 is pretty much the same today as it was in Velious. Shouldn't we have learned how not to poke our fingers with a needle when sewing? Shouldn't we have learned that tying off a string with this type of knot means that the string will unravel on first use? These are things you would learn over time, representative of an increase in skill -- and more importantly, of an increase in your ability to succeed at items.

            We have no items or abilities in game that actually raise the success rate of combines, save for JCM. The benefit of geerloks for success rates at high skill is limited, due to the 252 hard cap on tradeskills.

            I'm seeking some measure of feedback on how we can improve our ability to succeed combines. When I find an idea worthy of implementing (and I freely admit I don't have such an idea now), I'll /feedback it, email it, etc.
            Sir KyrosKrane Sylvanblade
            Master Artisan (300 + GM Trophy in all) of Luclin (Veeshan)
            Master Fisherman (200) and possibly Drunk (2xx + 20%), not sober enough to tell!
            Lightbringer, Redeemer, and Valiant servant of Erollisi Marr

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Tradeskillers need power increases too

              Originally posted by KyrosKrane
              In Velious, you didn't have geerloks (which are items that give a 5% bonus to a skill in your tradeskill). I believe they were introduced around Luclin, though I could be wrong. However, the benefit of them is minimal since your maximum modified skill in a tradeskill is still capped at 252. In addition, to the best of our current knowledge ("our" referring to the folks who post at the EQTraders message boards), there is a "soft cap" of sorts on how high your skill should be to get the maximum chance of success on a combine. Simply put, once you are above that cap, you chance to succeed is identical, whether you're one point over or 100 points over.
              There was recently a change to the trivial failure rate which makes it so continued skillups cause a further decrease in failure rate from 5% (what it used to be) down to 0% (or so close as to make no difference. Geerlocks for most skills were indeed introduced with luclin.

              There are other improvements tradeskillers have gotten (such as New Tanaan Crafting Mastery, which allows you to increase more than one tradeskill over 200), but only one has actually improved the chance of success on combines -- Jewel Crafting Mastery. That's an enchanter-only class AA that requires a cumulative minimum of level 59 and 18 AA points spent on prerequisites, plus an additional 18 points to earn three ranks in this skill. For a total of 36AA, enchanters get a 50% reduction in fail rates for JC combines only. No other class gets this ability, or anything remotely similar, so it doesn't count as a generally available improvement.
              There is also Alchemy Master (for shammies) and Poison Mastery (for rogues).

              Barring this one exception (JCM), there is nothing in the game that makes tradeskill combines more likely to succeed. A 250-skill tailor in the Velious era has precisely the same chance to make a Fleeting Quiver as does a 250-skill tailor today.
              The two extra modified skill points from a geerlock don't give much extra chance of a sucess but they do give some.

              To respond to the rest of your post...I believe that the smithing revamp was done after velious came out. Therefor a more accurate comparison than the previous one would be a Fine plate breastplate (some ac and nothing else) to a farwater plate bp (over 100 hps lots of ac etc). From this comparison we see that the tradeskilled items have increased in "power" more than the non tradeskilled items (at least in percentage terms). Yes the items are rare, but they aren't that rare. We, tradeskillers, are much better off as far as being able to make money etc than we were during velious. There was nothing very useful we could make pre velious...the first decent tradeskilled items were the velious tailored stuff. The first stat foods were introduced during velious etc. Being able to skillup easier makes it a lot easier to make the velious and pop and other tradeskilled items.

              The elemental tradeskilled items compare quite favorably to the elemental dropped items, which is as it should be. The tradeskilled items are mostly obtainable in a single group, which makes them much more common than some of the dropped items. If there were any tradeskilled items from time I would expect them to compare favorably to the time dropped items, but not be as good. But there aren't any. We have sets of smithed and tailored armor that are much better than ornate armor. We can make food and drinks that are great gear, especially resist gear. The jewelry made items (vallorium rings, bloodmetal earrings) are still being worn by many people who have time access.

              The only complaint that I would have is that some of the tier 3 stuff (hurricane chain and stuff) could use a bit of a boost, but it compares decently with ornate, so I guess it's what is intended. I could also definately see a need for better tradeskill made arrows, and a bit more tradeskilled stat drinks to bring them more in line with where the foods are.

              We aren't a separate class untill EQ 2. I personally am happy enough that we can make usefull items and maybe make some profit off of selling some.
              ~Tudani
              Retired Shamaness of Talisman
              Tunare

              "Measure twice, cut once."

              Comment


              • #8
                i think a lv 65 with 210 skill having an advantage over me at 44 with 210 skill would make tradeskills much less attractive for me. tradeskills are non-level character progression. you might be uber with 400+ aa's but try and cook a picnic you punk.

                aa's to increase it maybe.

                about the fleeting quiver. smithing has had trivials changed on it repeatedly to make stuff trivial lower. i dont think this has been done with tailoring because few recipes are high and not pretty good. fine plate with no stats and some ac from 242 to 188 trivial with the introduction of old cultural i think. dont remember that well.

                Maker of Picnics.
                Cooker of things best left unidentified.
                "Grimrose points to the sky. Look! Up in the sky, it's a bird, no, a plane, no it's Picnic-Man. It's Emiamn, a mild mannered tradeskiller by day but daring handsome crime fighter at night. Spreading peace and joy to norrath with his mighty Picnics!"

                Comment


                • #9
                  What they need is to make tradeskills in such a way as it doesn't require higher levels to be able to do them.. or to gather components. Aid Gimmel, and the shawl, were the worst things ever to happen to those who saw tradeskills as an alternate to being a uberplayer. It changed tradeskills from being something done because people saw it as a challenge, to being somethign that was only needed to get uberitem_01.

                  To do this however, they need to take plat out of the equation all together. Simply because a person has large amounts of plat shouldn't be the factor on if they can tradeskill or not.

                  Also, tradeskillers should be able to make very nice, no-drop items. Lets face it, a superbly skilled craftsman SHOULD be able to make somethign they can use.. and you can bet they're goign to want to keep the best for themselves.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    i wouldn't mind some uber no-drop recipes. look at party platters. nothing that intensive though. i like making stuff to sell but have given so much more away than i have sold.
                    the shawl would be nice and i am working on it but a faction or small exp quest requiring tradeskills and just some other fun stuff with your tradeskills would be great too.
                    so many of the things are bought in the bazaar now a days. velium should be added to a merchant in thurg somewhere and the prices raised on merchants. farmers still get it free (no pp cost at least).
                    dont support a free to tradeskill approach but less cost on certain things would be very nice. as someone who jukend fs weapons for hq ore the price on hq is just disgusting. mq ore i only on merchants and can't be farmed .
                    potc and aid grimmel (esp grim) have done a lot more than shawls to hurt tradeskillers though. grimmel requires everything with a skill of 200+ so you must spend the aa points to be able to gm it anyway. many wont but if they are already at 220 then 250 isn't nearly as far as 3 aa and 200. the shawls only required tailoring to 200 for 1 combine triv. not even a required level.

                    just some general statements and opinions.

                    Maker of Picnics.
                    Cooker of things best left unidentified.
                    "Grimrose points to the sky. Look! Up in the sky, it's a bird, no, a plane, no it's Picnic-Man. It's Emiamn, a mild mannered tradeskiller by day but daring handsome crime fighter at night. Spreading peace and joy to norrath with his mighty Picnics!"

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      I think the comparisons you are making are somewhat disingenuous.

                      Raex's is an elemental breastplate mold. As far as I am aware, the BP elemental molds only drop in plane of time. A place 99% of players will never get to.

                      BP of eradication comes from the statue in kael. It does not drop all the time. The mob spawns every 3-7 days. One of these bps can enter the game about every other week. Takes 20-40 people to acquire one.

                      Fierce heraldic? Only worshipers of rallos zek can wear them. Any smith of the proper race can make as many as they can get supplies for. Anyone with the money can buy one.

                      Dan Enright, the tradeskill guy at Sony, has mentioned on more than one time that tradeskills have frequently lagged behind loot itemizations. The old tradeskill items were near the top of the line when kunark came out. Except for tailoring, not much changed till the blue diamond recipes came out. I think he has enough on his to-do list without us beating him up some more.

                      I think that the PoP player made items do make up for a lot of the gap you perceive. I would like to see more things like them in the future.

                      I do agree with you that failing a combine that trivials 200 points below your base skill is somewhat silly.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Folks, you're completely missing my point.

                        I am focusing on one very narrow issue. I want a way to reduce my fail rate on the most difficult of combines. This can be through increased skill caps; through removing the 252 hard cap; through AA's like JCM, but for all skills and open to all classes; through items that duplicate the effect of JCM, but again for all skills and classes; or through something else entirely. This is the sole issue I'm trying to convey here; all else is fodder for other primal screams.

                        I'm not arguing over the relative power of items from the past to today. I'm not arguing that the trivials of fine plate should or should not have changed. I'm not arguing whether the stuff you can craft with tradeskills today is stronger or weaker than what you could craft three years ago.

                        Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't listed the armors at all.

                        My point is simply that success and failure rates on the highest-trivial items have remained largely unchanged since Velious. We have not become better crafters (defined as failing less on difficult combines) whereas in all other ways, the game has advanced.

                        You can now hit for harder (with new weapons and spells), take hits better (with new armor and spells), go to places more easily (with ports, Luclin spires, and PoK books), even kill the very gods (or at least their avatars) ... yet there is no way for me to reduce the fail rate on my smithing or tailoring combines if I am already a 250 smith or tailor with a geerlok.

                        The only reason I listed the armors at all was an example of how far the top end of the game has come. I'm not interested in their drop rates. I'm not interested in their relative strengths or merits. I'm not interested in whether crafted armor is comparable, better, or worse to dropped armor at various levels of the game. It was simply to show how far the state of the game has advanced in one way, in contrast to the near-zero advancement in our ability to successfully craft items.

                        As to the other points raised...

                        The fleeting quiver was another example. I purposely chose an item with a medium trivial -- 222 tailoring is more than a typical player would have, but well below the skill of a 250 tailor. If my tailoring skill in the Velious era was 220, and I attemped the quiver, I would have, say X% chance of success. If my skill today was 220 and I attempted the quiver, my chance of success would be identical. The only new thing that could possibly affect my success rate is a geerlok, and its effect is debatable at best.

                        That brings me to my next point. I will happily concede that the reduction in fails on trivial combines is a good thing. I've noted distinctly less failures on subcombines when doing complicated, top-end items. However, it's unclear how this change affects high-trivial combines, if it does at all. If all they did was remove the 5% minimum fail rate, and allow trivial failures to scale normally towards zero, then this would have no effect. If instead they removed both the 5% chance to fail AND the 5% chance to succeed, regardless of skill, then this in fact would be a detrimental change to high-end tradeskillers -- it could actually reduce the success rate on the most difficult combines. Again, we just don't have enough info to make a meaningful comment here.

                        I also apologize for leaving out Alchemy Master (for shamans) and Poison Mastery (for rogues). I was not aware of those. That still leaves six major tradeskills (open to all races and classes) plus tinkering (open to gnomes) without a corresponding ability.

                        I hope this clarifies my point a bit.
                        Sir KyrosKrane Sylvanblade
                        Master Artisan (300 + GM Trophy in all) of Luclin (Veeshan)
                        Master Fisherman (200) and possibly Drunk (2xx + 20%), not sober enough to tell!
                        Lightbringer, Redeemer, and Valiant servant of Erollisi Marr

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by KyrosKrane
                          Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't listed the armors at all.
                          Totally, except someone would've anyway.

                          Compare a teir'dal BP to a statue BP. Compate a DPR BP to a great shadow plate mail. Compare a farwater BP to a Raex BP. The ability of tradeskillers to MAKE items has scaled well with the expansions.

                          Look at the complete disaster they made of smithing by not adjusting trivials as they went but doing it retroactively. Look at how much level 65 trivializes Kunark content - heck, *paladins* are soloing Gorenaire.

                          As expansions march on, older items are retired - both in tradeskills and PvE.

                          Personally, looking at what you suggest (I think you're proposing raising tradeskill caps and adding AA) --- no. It will add ANOTHER bridge between the haves and the have nots, it will add YET ANOTHER SILLY TIME SINK TO TRADESKILLING, and it will suck the few remaining bits of fun out of tradeskills. No, no, no. No. Go read the SK boards on level 70 - everyone hates it because it's REQUIRED levelling, but everone's going to do it because it's REQUIRED. Raising tradeskill caps and adding tradeskill AA will be the same thing.

                          Sony has done a mostly good job of scaling tradeskills up with the expansions. If you want more numbers to max out, no. That would be a giant step in the wrong direction.

                          And your fleeting quiver example is a bad one. Or maybe it's a perfect illustration of why it's a bad idea. Sure a 220 tailor has the same chance to succeed at a quiver velious or PoP. but a PoP tailor has MORE ways to skill up, just like a PoP character has MORE items to choose from to maximize their skill. And like a PoP tailor making an earthweave robe and laughing at the thought of doing arctic wyvern combines for sale, the PoP raider has access to better gear at the (roughly) same level as a Velious raider (and a luclin raider had access to mind-bogglingly better gear at the same level).

                          So... no. Bad idea.

                          Adding more time sinks to tradeskilling is NOT the answer.

                          Myrron's note: Edited for content
                          Last edited by Myrron; 12-09-2003, 12:24 PM.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Raising the sucess rate for high end items would be a bad thing! There is already enough of a flood and that would just make it worse.
                            Moonlilly

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              level 70? what?? I can't get fudging 53. (And if they do this, oh there will be a rant about how Sullon works. >_<)


                              But I do agree that this 252 thing has got to go. Fine, don't be able to skill up past 250, I'm all for it. But why stop at 252? Is it in the code? (I doubt.) Arbitrary decision? Strikes me as such.


                              The things we can make have 'increased'; and how hard is it to get the components? Pop was made with raiding guilds in mind; it's uber and it's unbelievably hard.


                              Yes, things drop out of the loop all the time. Deathsteel/Firey Forged weapons. /shakes head. But the individual tradeskiller is slowly becoming one of those things too.



                              Something needs to be done. I'm sorry I don't have any ideas. But something, somehow, somewhere, somewhen, even if it's 'small', needs to be done.

                              -- Sanna
                              Mistress Tinkbang Tankboom - Ak'Anon, Tarew Marr
                              Gneehugging Chantaranga of the 66th Mez Break - AA:59
                              Assisted by Nakigoe Sennamida, Druidess of 65 Foraged Steamfont Springwaters - AA:8
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                              [BK-210 // BR-250 // BS-203 // FL-200 // JC-240 // PT-200 // TL-200 ]---[ TK-179 // RS-182 // FS-165 ]-- Points: 1503/1750 -- Shawl: EIGHT and wearing it ^_^.
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