My 2 Cents on Tradeskill Quests

Discussion in 'Tradeskills' started by Almee, Mar 18, 2022.

  1. Almee Well-Known Member

    Now that we have been blessed with a real tradeskiller being in charge of tradeskill quests I would like to add my 2 cent's about upcoming quests and harvests. My views are biased by age, illness, and personal experience.

    Tradeskills, in EQ2, are the perfect way children and partners can share in their parent's or partner's obsession with gaming and handicapped people can participate productively, in their guilds, without the stress and physical skills needed for adventuring. That is a function of the game that should be exploited by making sure all tradeskill-related quests will be doable by a wide variety of people who might not be able to adventure.

    EQ2 offers many ways to adventure but tradeskills have been slowly, but surely, turning more into an arcade-type feature. This has driven many of my family and friends, who were long-time, subbed players, into leaving the game. For some it was the stress of dodging aggro mobs. For others it was physically too demanding.

    EQ2 debuted with the promise that adventuring and tradeskills would offer two different paths of leveling characters. This set EQ2 apart from all other games and brought members of my family, and friends, to the game.

    For many years, tradeskillers were able to harvest and level up their characters, in various crafts, without having to level up in adventuring. But now, tradeskills and adventuring have become mixed leaving no room for advancement without adventuring. In addition, the things tradeskillers make have little value, for some types of crafters, giving them no reason to craft.

    The game needs to return to its original goal of offering two types of game play to bring back players that left when tradeskills began requiring adventuring skills. Tradeskillers shouldn't have to fight or dodge 3^ aggro mobs to harvest or complete a quest. There should always be adequate harvests in non-aggro areas and if quests involve forays into aggro territory the character should have an illusion spell to use.

    The goal should be to allow tradeskillers access to all the areas of the game but with the protection of illusion spells or protection from the quest giver. That would allow them to find special ingredients in instances and dungeons, to make items, without having to fight mobs way above their adventuring level. The Hall of Thunder instance, in PoM, is a good example of an exciting TS quest without the danger of getting killed by mobs. The VoV TS quest line is another good example of exciting TS quests without much need for adventuring skills though it goes much faster if you have them.

    I'm probably preaching to the choir, with Denmum in charge of tradeskills now, but I'm adding my 2 cents to back her up with my input as a long-time subscriber and a crafter, harvester, and decorator.
  2. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    And hence, why "thinking outside of the box" doesn't work.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  3. Almee Well-Known Member

    I should amend my post to say that Denmum may, or may not, agree with what I've said but I trust that she knows how to take tradeskills in the right direction. I hope the powers that be, at DP, will listen to her and allow her to make the changes and additions she deems necessary to make EQ2 tradeskills the very best in the gaming world.
  4. Netherfury Member

    I know I’ve been critical of some trade skill problems, but I have to disagree about it not being doable
    I’ve ran more than a few low levels through VOV timeline, and only ever encountered one dangerous area
    The first gather one, you can get all you need by doing rounds by the jungle flight point NPC, as all spawn around there
    You don’t need to go anywhere near the croc area
    The one bad part I found is when you had to gather from the bird nest, on way to it, there’s a hidden snake, that will one shot you, but you can get around it by going further towards the hill, then back again
    The jungle gather part, if you follow the bottom of the map, where no Argo mobs, all gather nodes are there
    The wastes gather one, if you run from NPC up to FG door, all the gather points are there
    Obviously FG itself, just use werewolf disguise
    I do wish the snakes were moved away from the non Argo birds area though, as they can be tricky to spot and see through stealth
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone and Twyla like this.
  5. Almee Well-Known Member

    Netherfury, I think you misread what I wrote. My exact words, about the VoV timeline were: "The VoV TS quest line is another good example of exciting TS quests without much need for adventuring skills though it goes much faster if you have them." I'm currently running all my 120 tradeskillers through the line regardless of their adventuring level.
  6. Netherfury Member

    In my defence, I wrote my reply before coffee
  7. Denmum Developer

    I can't always promise VoV levels of accomodations for sqishy crafters on crafting quests, but I'm doing what I can. I will always keep the squishier players in mind when doing crafting quests, I just have to work on balancing the whole risk and reward issues along the way.

    That werewolf illusion was/is a great way to remove the "squishy" part from the equation but it took a TON of time and effort from 3 of us to get it to not only work properly but to close up as many potential adventurer exploits of the feature as we could. It also got some serious negative pushback from adventuring crafters who wanted to harvest something "useful" (aka real harvests) on the dailies and weekly, which is something we will not allow when giving aggro-free questing like that.
  8. Netherfury Member

    can i ask you might consider looking into one part of the TS sig chain?
    In Svarni Expanse, where you meet the kid at the river, and she asks you collect ingrediants, one of them, from the bird nest, right between the river and the nest is a hidden snake that sees through stealth, not a major issue as you can run to the hill then back down, but would be a lot simpler if that single snake was removed, caught me nearly every damm time lol
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone, Almee and Twyla like this.
  9. Almee Well-Known Member

    That snake is a PITA. Fortunately, I'm able to run my low levels with 120+ characters so I squish him first but I suspect a lot of players can't run more than one character at a time so it would be helpful to either make him nearsighted or gone.
  10. Almee Well-Known Member

    I agree that it wouldn't be right to let crafters harvest useable mats when doing the daily and weekly quest in FG. The place would be mobbed and no one would be out looking for mats in the overland areas. But if crafters want to harvest useful mats, maybe in the future the quest mats could be gathered, without illusion form, from the overland areas like we did in previous xpacs. But, personally, I'm fine with gathering fake mats with an illusion form. I just wish it was in an area with better lighting as I find FG really hard on the eyes after a short while.
  11. AOE1 Well-Known Member

    I think the idea of the illusion allowing players to do the daily and weekly ts quest brilliant. Having the harvest not even be visible without it is also brilliant. Not every tradeskiller is lvl 120 and wants to fight the hordes of mobs in FG. I also agree that normal nodes do not need to be in there. There are 3 other zones to harvest in. And in Svarni there are several areas that the mobs are not agro to anyone.
  12. Netherfury Member

    Only one low level alt remembered to run to hill and down, rest all got squished by that snake it’s the only part of the chain where being low level doesn’t help
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  13. Lysia Active Member

    I gave in and got all my toons up in adventure lvl first -- I just gave up ... gave DB what they wanted us to do ....
    I salute all of you who did not do that -- you are the champs !
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  14. Pathetica Active Member

    It wasn't until the leave your mark was no longer doable with illusion on that I realized how awful I had been when I would so-and-so was here with my level 12's.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  15. Rattophaxe Well-Known Member

    What snake? I've run multiple lowbies thru that timeline and never got whacked by a snake when getting the eggs. Just stay away from the bushes.

    And I know I'm going to be shouted at for saying this, but I like a certain level of risk in my tradeskill timelines! Otherwise it's just boring running back and forth, which I loathe with a passion (CD, I am looking at you). Perhaps not quite as much "risk" as the Aurelian Coast section of BoL (multiple deaths there isn't a risk for a lowbie, its an iron-clad guarantee), but some. For me VoV was actually a little tame. But then my favorite timeline is PoP, so I guess I'm an outlier.
  16. Netherfury Member

    as you cross the river, where the elephants are from the middle piece of land, theres a snake in first bush, if you werent aware its there it will one shot you, low level, and even knowing its there can cause issues as it sees through stealth and has a wide agro range
    as i said, it is easy to bypass it, if you remember its there lol
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  17. AOE1 Well-Known Member

    You go down the river towards the cliff further then cut across and down and over to that next. There is to agro anyone that way. I have done it all my tradeskillers and after meeting the first snake, got wise and went further down swimming to a safer spot to cross. Sometimes high levels would be there harvesting and making the low level tradeskillers wait for respawns but it is still easily doable. Just know where you are walking.
  18. Netherfury Member

    actually already said that... whats the harm removing one snake?
    for me personally, i have a progressive terminal illness that affects my memory, so i dont always remember its there
    does that mean it needs changed? probably not, but removing a single snake wont hurt anyone
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone and Almee like this.
  19. Almee Well-Known Member

    I think the problem with the snake is that most players aren't going to know it is there until it attacks them. After that, they can avoid the snake by swimming further down the river before cutting over to the where the nest is. But that lone snake can leave a bad taste in the mouth since the other mobs are non aggro. It just seems like a dirty trick by DP as it is really well hidden and unexpected.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  20. Carynn Well-Known Member

    Strifewind Isle in Barren Sky is a good example of a harvest area where dodging mobs is relatively easy, but they're still there. In case you're looking for lands to emulate, Denmum!
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.