What would you say is the proportion of your experimentation that uses requires world vs held containers? Does the Tradeskill Depot require more clicking than picking up items from bags or a house? If so, how much more?
I agree with the inconvenience of experimentation, though it's probably not the biggest thing. Is the point of the depot to just help with server issues when loading bank contents on zoning? Then no change is needed. Is the point to make tradeskills easier? This would be a good quality of life change. Maybe a compromise? How hard would it be to add a flag to world tradeskill containers (PoK, guild hall, etc) that allows withdrawals from the depot, but inventory containers lack that?
Not the same person, but when doing my tradeskills to 350 I used the static tradeskill stations in plane of knowledge around the bank for about 95% of the combines and I use them for crafting all of my raid gear as well.
Using them out of location convenience and the recipe requiring them are two different things. I'm asking for info on the latter.
To the first question, I have made nearly all jewelry crafted tainted topaz combines, in a reinforced jeweler's kit, while in the world killing. I have also made nearly all research combines on the fly while killing in a hybrid research container, to make the new augments while not at a vendor/static or world container. So I'd say near 100% of my new experimentation happened with bagged containers. To the second. I just attempted your proposed work around. In Ruins of Shadow Haven using a spit while standing at a bank. Placed a spit in my primary slot. Control left clicked to get 1 of a type of item out of the tradeskill depot so I don't request a whole stack. It didn't go to the tradeskill container, because somewhere on me, I had that item, so it combined with the stack on me. Click Find item, type out what I was going to use....click the item, grab item, or highlight item...split stack for the combine.... Third thing not really mentioned here, but when experimenting, spit is 6 slot, oven is 10 slot. Collapsible Distillery - 4 slot, Brew Barrel - 10 slot. This type of slot limitation will drastically limit experimentation while standing at a banker. Last, I'm not really sure why control left clicking doesn't work the way it works for pulling something out of the bank. Can we hear why experimentation is not usable from the container? I cannot recall early beta, but someone posted here they were sure experimentation worked from the container while not at a bank in the early beta.
The inability to keep tools in the depot is infuriating as well. While working on smithing I alternate between Smithy Hammer, File, Gnomish Smithy Hammer, and Tannan Smithy Hammer. So it is either carry all my tools (2-3 dozen across the skills) or still be tied to going back to a bank. Could make every tool stack to 2 so we could store in the depot? Also, if the recipe produces a product that is part of the recipe, on success or fail, it should be left in the depot. Example is Scoriae Bite. Recipe is Advanced Poison Vial, Celestial Suspension, Drop of Mercury, Golden Ember Powder, Phosphorous Powder. On failure you get the Advanced Poison Vial back. So I can start with 40 of everything in depot and end up with 36 Bites and 4 Vials in inventory. So then I need to go back to bank to put the Vials back in depot. Overall, I adore the depot. It is the Only reason I bought the expansion at all. I just wish it was more robust.
i never use the portable containers, only the planted ones in pok or the guild hall. i guess this isnt why i didnt think of it? i'd still love to see it added into the stationary containers.
Being able to open/access the depot while at a tradeskill container should have been a no-brainer feature...as in, it should have been the primary function of this feature. The fact that you guys (the devs) don't understand this is sort of mind boggling and makes me wonder if any of you have actually skilled up tradeskills from 300 to 350. Telling people to use the AA banker as a workaround is, quite frankly, insulting. One, you can only summon it once a day, and two, it only sticks around for a short time (10 min according to the AA description). When someone is skilling up stuff like research, you could easilly be doing it for an hour or two. The clockwork banker is useless in that regard. And telling people to just stand at a bank and open a container is equally as tone def since many of the recipes REQUIRE a stationary container because the recipe has too many materials to use a portable container.
it is an extra Bank . (period ) just like the dragon's horde is extra bank space .. the depot lets you put TS items in it .. just like if they were to make an NPC to hold TS items you would have to go to said NPC and withdraw items to take to a TS container or use a collapsible one in inventory. at least with the depot you can use it with a tad bit more functionality .. (limited albeit ) but its all about the bank space .. just like how real estate is about location , location location.. the TS depot is about bank space , bank space, bank space .. as in it free's up alot more for you .. also the TS depot is shared (the slots) to everyone on the same account from any server on that account .. I dont even own NoS yet but when I do purchase it , it will free up like at least 10 bank slots for more regular bags .. i'll still keep prolly 2 TS bags for current stuff im working on or for Tools . and I'm sure it will free up a few of my houses as well .. Now if we could only get something like a Collector's depot would be Awesome .. I would pay big BANK for that ..
I haven't personally done the 300 to 350 grind, hence why I'm asking genuine questions to become more educated on the topic. Attacking my attempts makes me not want to try. My questions also aren't rhetorical. I'm looking for real answers in order to provide feedback to those that will be the ones making the decisions on how the feature is updated. I can't personally see how removing the banker restriction on interacting with the TS Depot would result in a significantly different experience than now by using the static or summoned bankers which is why I'm in this thread asking questions. I covered this in my original post, but perhaps you missed that or haven't actually used the AA. The Clockwork Banker AA puts a buff on you that last for 10m (or longer if you have a spell extension focus) and it doesn't expire if you're in a zone where buffs don't tick down such as PoK. It also persists through camping if you wanted to split your experimentation session across multiple days. I know, that's why I was hoping someone would be able to provide an answer (estimation) when I asked:
Meeko, Personally I use static containers just about 100% of the time. This is purely an inventory management issue. I main loot for my group so my bags have all of my stuff and my groups stuff that remains to be split (static set group, always the same people). So it is seldom that I constantly have a bag slot open to drop a TS container into. As a result I go to PoK or the guild hall to do my combines. To be honest I have just about completely forgotten that I can do combines in portable containers as a result. As for the 300-350 grind... I have done it for Brewing and Alchemy. Alchemy was very formulaic and I held almost everything I needed on me. Brewing was another story. Very few repeat items except for some vendor stuff. This requires an insane amount of space. I will be using the banker AA and stuffing my TS cache full for this.
The cooldown/availability of the banker AA, having to have a banker next to every placeable TS station in the guild hall... The fact that it was too much work for Daybreak to add several hundred bankers next to each of the placable TS stations they seeded in the world. If its too much work for Daybreak to do it for the objects they "own", it sounds like they're telling you its too much work to expect the players to do so as well. I get it, you could put a banker in the middle of the room, and arrange the placeable stations in a ring around the banker so it's "in range" of all the stations. But its a little immersion breaking, and again even Daybreak didn't do it. It also doesn't work for combines with multiples of the same item, (pull one fish scale, then pull a second fish scale, they stack instead of creating 1 stack of 1 each) or the stationaries which don't always have a portable counterpart that works (Jewelry Kits for example) or a viably available portable counterpart at all (smithing)
By the time we get the Guild Depot - IF we get the Guild Depot - you'll be able to experiment with the Depot open. If the Personal Depot isn't fixed, people just won't use it, and they (Daybreak) won't expend resources on a Guild Depot people... still won't use. I'm in a similar situation as you are. I three box mostly to catch up to current levels. I've done the Artisan Aug on all three accounts. I had all the TS mats across several bankers on the third account - one banker (creatively named Josabank) did the wearables (Tailoring, Smithing, Fletching) one (Gortons) did consumables (Baking/Brewing), while the last did the I'm an Enchanter so I might as well skills (Research and JC). I haven't cleared all the bank alts yet, but basically I took each stack of whatever, split it into thirds, and moved it to the Depot. When the guild depot comes out, I'll just dump all the personal Depots back into the guild depot. Or back onto the bank alts if they take too long/never fix the Depot into something usable.
Lets make a deal, you put in an in game tracker that tells me what recipes I need to make to get to 350 and we can leave depot alone! yes I hit 300 on a lot of the skills when you had to do em all by hand, I remember the pain.
Smithing and Pottery which are two of nine to eleven tradeskills require a world container for (almost) every recipe and on top of that I'm sure some jewelcraft, brewing and baking recipes require a world container. Probably 1/3 of combines require a world container for characters without Alchemy, Poison Making or Tinkering and Gnome Rogues have the lowest percentage of recipes requiring a world container. If that's your concern make portable 10 slot containers for all the generic world containers, place the merchant somewhere appropriate if you don't want TLP players running around with a full set of 10 slot containers right away. There are plenty of things less immersive in EQ than carrying around a Pottery Wheel, Kiln and Forge.
If you are in PoK, the GH or Sunrise Hills, the AA banker shouldn't count down - but I agree it's not a very graceful answer to the problem, but in these zones it might be workable. Still limits you to one TS sprint per cooldown period. They also don't follow well/at all - so if you're moving between skills, again, less than graceful. I would actually offer yes, the current implementation of the TS Depot, when it comes to experimenting, is significantly different than the previous experience. I cannot store any ingredients in the TS Depot when I'm going to be attempting to learn a bunch of new recipes. I will need to remove everything I might need from the TS Depot and put it in my inventory in order to stand there attempt new recipes. If I want to work on research, I'd have to remove almost 100 ingredients that I might need in order to start experimenting and that's before I start deciding if I want to work on charta arcanums, papers, orphic cards, etc. That's a lot of clicking - so - I'd probably stick with the way I currently do it whether it's using real estate, bank space or standing in front of the vendor rather than go through that pain any time I wanted to try to work on research. (I personally use real estate to store by tradeskill - so if I want to work on recipes for research, I go to my research house where I have a stock of inks, thickeners, quills, additives and all the papers/parchments, etc. ready to go. Yes, I still need to remove them 1 by 1 from real estate storage and move them into the container, but I don't have to run back to the banker to do it.) Though I know there is a sundry list of enhancements that are percolating to the surface related to the TS Depot, I think the basic enhancement that everyone is begging for is if I can open the TS Depot window from a tradeskill container, allow me to withdraw from that window so I can pull out the ingredients I need for the unlearned/unlearnable recipe. Don't make me go back to a banker and don't make me have to pull everything I might need out before I start. As for containers? I use static/placeable containers most of the time except for research, alchemy, tinkering and make poison. For the last three I exclusively use inventory containers.
I have pursued the housing solution for TS mats (and everything, really) mainly because any of my chars can access anything they need, any time, without having to swap any chars/login-logout/etc. The GH TS depot would be the one solution I'd like even better than that, but I agree with your assessment... if they don't make the personal depot what players want, they may not bother with the GH version. As to those pointing out that the Vet AA banker won't count down in certain zones, that's great and all, but you're missing one other point. What if you used that banker somewhere else in the last 15 hours, and it's not available?
