This HAS to have come up at some point in the long history of the game. Has anybody given serious consideration to allowing characters to have multiple, maybe all the tradeskills available to them at once, like we can have Adorning, Tinkering and Transmuting along with a "primary" Trade? Even Denmum has said most folks have alts just for crafting various stuff. It's not like the game mechanics truly promote selling tradeskilled items to others anyway. Not like at launch anyway. Everybody has their own carpenter for house decorating, and all the other TSs have been reduced in worth to varying degrees by free and looted uber gear. The plus side for Daybreak is fewer characters taking up space on the servers. It's a benefit for players too, since they can focus on a handful of characters instead of trying to level 9 or more alts. Me personally, I have bad altitus, and I haven't seen a class in EQ2 yet that I truly hate (at least once leveled enough), but there are only 4 or 5 that I really love. A master of all trades may not be realisitic IRL, but this is a fantasy setting after all.
I think the game's core mechanics are hard-coded for only one TS class and one adventure class per toon. I actually don't know if this topic has been brought up in the past, but I would think that someone would suggest the possibility to have more than one TS per toon if it were possible. I would certainly love to be a master of all 9 classes (I actually have the master certificates for all 9 because I've intentionally reset through all nine for questing purposes,) but I could imagine that certain quests like the Earring of Solstice and the Coldain Prayer Shawl might bring up some coding issues with the quest NPCs.
Oh I agree there'd be a few coding challenges with the quests you mentioned and a few others. I bet it could be overcome also though. As I've said in other threads, nearly anything is actually possible in coding if the willpower and money are there. That said, *IF* it's worth the work, or anybody would suddenly give up a bunch of alts because they could be "uber crafter" on their main... That's another story.
A grain of salt - I haven't had a sip of coffee yet this morning! I should think the easiest, most efficient way to even consider it would be turning all class-specific recipes to "Artisan XX". You still have to be whatever level, but any main class to get, scribe & craft the recipes, along with bumping the ceiling for the individual crafting skills across the board. /shrug ... now, where's that pot of java.... EDIT: Ok, now I'm half a cup in, I'm also guessing the size of this may be a bit too large of a change, even if it is possible. There is sooo much that would be involved I'm sure. Great thought, though - who knows, maybe some day.
Yeah but that's a different game engine altogether and was designed with that in mind. There are a lot more technical hurdles that may not make it possible for EQ2.
A good example why a smaller, simpler modification like I mentioned here would be better for EQ2 - you wouldn't need to bother going through the other tradeskill class timelines, you'd just be able to buy, scribe and use an alternate version of their recipes. You STAY a Carpenter, or Sage, or Armorer, or whatever your crafting main class is (and would still be able to reset, change, etc as now). This way, you could continue to do everything as you do now, or you could choose to add the extra, out-of-class recipes if you want to really be a single-character jack of all trades, or keep your tradeskill classes spread out across alts. ie - Let's say you just turn Level 50 carpenter, you can now buy Carpenter Essentials 50-59 also, you gain access to Artisan's Alchemy Essentials 50-59, Artisan's Sage Essentials 50-59, Artisan Tailor Essentials 50-59 and so-on. Similar copy versions for Artisan's Advanced books could also be sold on city/guild merchants.
Huh? What you're proposing wouldn't be 'a few' of anything, it would requie a major rework of the entire system.
First I wasn't even lobbying for it outright, I just put it out there for discussion. I recall hearing the same "Impossible, can't be done" form others back in the day when secondary crafting skills were first talked about, and then when everybody was allowed to have all three of those. BUT since you're on the development team and are intimately familiar with all the code, why don't you enlighten us in detail regarding those required changes.
I am not "intimately" familiar with the code, since I am a designer, not a coder, but I can tell you that IF it was ever decided that such a major shift to crafting was desired, it would be a massive and expensive undertaking, as our teams are overloaded with the current load, and this would require Code, Mechanics, Design and QA resources that are already booked out at least a year in advance. That "if" is very important. It isn't anything that we are convinced would be desireable, much less worth the amount of time and expense it would involve. You can continue to discuss it, of course, but be aware that it is an unlikely can of worms.
appreciate the developer-side perspective Denmum! As a completionist the biggest struggle I've had in coming from EQ1 to EQ2 is the need for so many alts to try to "complete" the tradeskill aspect of the game. With that being said, tradeskilling is much easier now than it was at launch, so it could always be worse. I do feel the OP's pain though. the thing with many of these "wish list" game change requests is that there is always a cost (time/personnel/cash) involved. And yes, all 3 of those are likely already earmarked for the next 12 months or more so for a change like this to happen it would need to be in big enough demand to push other projects timelines further out to accommodate.
It is always great to hear some of the "pie in the sky" wishlist items, as you never know what is doable until you ask. (Translation, please don't stop submitting ideas just because we say something isn't feasible. It gets us thinking in different ways, even if we decide it is a path that we don't want to take, cannot take, etc. You never know when it will spark something spectacular.)
If you set up Tradeskills like Ascensions it might be doable . You could switch back and forth by going to a Tradeskill NPC. Of course you would need to level up whichever TS you have active and none of your other TS spells would not be available unless you switched to that class. The real sticking point would be the all the spells that would need to be kept track up. Ascensions have very few spells and only 4 classes to worry about.
Just throwing my two cents in: I appreciate you sharing your thoughts Denmum, I also think it would be a huge undertaking. My question I guess is why? I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, it just doesn’t seem like it’s necessary.
