Marginalization of tradeskills and tradeskilling

[ironic42]

Anyone else feel like the "make all" check box completely marginalizes tradeskills? I mean, if it's possible to just buy, say, enough pure silver ingots and sunshard ore for 1000 silver conduit combines, once the pain of learning the silver conduit recipe (which should only take 20 attempts, worst case) is dealt with, it's possible to skill tinkering to 300 with under 10 clicks and without having to be at the keyboard.

That check box really needs not to work for combines whose trivial exceeds one's unmodded skill level. A *possible* exception would be if unmodded skill is 300 AND you're holding a 7/7 trophy - and no, I don't mean having modded skill of 345 should create the exception, because I don't think having shadow shears, gauntlets of dark embers, or any other +15% item should be seen as equivalent to putting in the time to evolve your trophy to 7/7, and I definitely don't think "make all" should be used to evolve a trophy.

Anyone's thoughts?

-aye

[Aanuvane]

Tradeskills have been increasingly marginalized for quite some time. The alternate recipes for cultural armor and the fact that you can attempt to make regal armor with a skill of 1, you can sit there with a potion and a couple stacks of animal pelts and go to town. Now, you don't even need to sit at the key board to do it!

[ironic42]

I'm not real put out by alternate recipes for cultural armor. To me, it makes sense that a gnome would be able to tinker their cultural armor.

As far as being able to make Regal armor with a skill of 1...that's not ideal, but at least in that case, there's basically a per-combine real-world cost involved: Unless someone wants to waste a load of loam or spinneret fluid on failed attempts, they need to get a Draught of the Craftsman so that their failures won't result in a loss of materials, and given the choice between spending ten actual dollars on a potion (or free SC funds that could go toward, say, a 32-slot bag) or spending up to...let's say...100k plat on player-made armor in the bazaar, I'm betting most players will spend the plat. How do we know? 500k for a krono.

"Make all" doesn't just make a single combine more convenient...by allowing it to be used for skillups, it basically says that there's no value in the time and effort every tradeskiller has put forth up to now.

-aye

[Aanuvane]

I chose to do tradeskills. I chose to do a lot of tradeskilling long before even the simplest of enhancements were put in (like the UI with a combine button). This change does not devalue the time and effort that I put in years ago and have reaped the benefits of many times over. Sure, it makes it easier for others. Sure, it makes it easier for me to level alts. But it doesn't take away from the effort I put forth. I can always tell the old timer stories...."you have no idea how bad this used to be...." That's just the way I look at this. I respectfully agree to disagree with you on this point.

A second comment on the alternate recipes and why I think that contributes just as equally to the general marginalization....now I can for 1p 1g 5s 3c per attempt, sit there and combine an extremely simple recipe and make the highest level armor without having done any of the pre-requisites. There is no loam/spinner/marrow involved in the alternate recipes. It is literally >2pp + cost of pelt/ore per attempt. I made regal armor with a modified skill of 145 in about 5 tries. So, you can sit there with a Draught and some exquisite or immaculate pelts and level tailoring extremely cheaply. Yes, you still have to acquire the seals and augments to go in said armor, but it wasn't really about the armor. It is about how they've added an extremely inexpensive path now for skilling up.

[Shortmid]

I just returned from a break since 2006. I personally have no issues with the new system. If it bothers you, don't use it.

As for other people using it, none of us has the right to dictate how others play their game. That would be like me complaining about DVRs, since when I was growing up I had to wait until the show was actually on TV to watch it. All throughout history, every aspect of real life has gotten easier and easier, so why shouldn't it do the same in our fantasy lives?