Bug for crafted apprentice items

There's nothing special about it being "a quest", though. The chat option above that one is often worth more while requiring less (4 hours of research, versus 4 hours of research plus 20 stringy meat minus 5 effulgent fuel.)

And you're asking me to believe not only in the difference between "an ordinary apron" and "an ordinary apron for a quest", but that "an ordinary apron for this level 100 quest" is fundamentally different from "an ordinary apron for every other level of quest." Don't ask me to believe that if you don't have to. Further, don't ask my dragon-slaying-sword-forging, dimension-hopping, level 100 character to think that the "help" he's giving his research flunky is so significant a "quest" that it deserves this sort of treatment. "Huge mistake" or no, the "fix" is a worse mistake. Kowtowing to mindless bureaucratic decisions is all it is.

Breaking suspension of disbelief and making a "fun" game more tedious is a horrible tradeoff for... whatever they gained from this. There were (and still are) tens of thousands of bigger fish to fry.

Well here I am finally. Got my crafter to level 100 and of course I mass-produced the new quest requirements as I have for the tiers prior. What is that? The researcher doesn't recognize the items I left in the bank? Not that bug again, I'll just go get them. What is that? The researcher doesn't recognize the frickin' items in my inventory? Man, how did they let the bug get this bad? But it is the holidays, I'm sure they'll have a fix in the works come the new year. Hey, I'll just check the forums to make sure someone has reported the problem and Marcellus Wallace is on the mother f****r. Thirteen pages later and this is how I feel...

You're going to be hell disappointed if you read all the posts in this thread.....

I take that back this issue does affect me, since the game crashes almost every time I go into a house, making me relog into the game twice instead of once is pretty aggravating.

Has this only just started Wurm? I'm starting to get this too, also randomly crashing zoning to the guild hall.

SInce AoM came out, Charlice.

This change really knocked the wind out of my sails. I don't understand it. Do you want us not to do the quest? Then just take it out. There's only so much boredom and tedium one can heap on a game mechanic before it becomes considered "worth avoiding".

As for people with multiple alts, they bought those character slots. They bought them in good faith based on established game mechanics. Change the mechanics out of the blue with no compelling reason is a breach of that good faith, and I'm sure a source of various levels of anger and dissatisfaction.

Just because one has an idea, doesn't make it a good idea. This isn't just a bad idea; it's the wrong idea, for any part of the game.

Amargi, if the daily apprentice quest is that frustrating for you, you can safely ignore it. The only thing you are missing out on would be the rewards and the shortening of the research time; your research, once started, will continue to crank along even if you ignore your apprentice.

Please don't ask that a quest that makes you personally unhappy be completely removed from the game. There are others who don't mind doing a daily quest, others who [even with the change to level 100 items] still want to do the quest for the chance of the rewards and for the lessened research time on valuable recipes.

The apprentice quests are purely optional. If they are impacting your enjoyment of the game you love, then they aren't worth your energy...spend it on the parts of the game you do enjoy.

um hence the phrase .... "worth avoiding"

and making things "worth avoiding" doesn't sound like much of a day job now I think of it.

This is from the EULA:

"You acknowledge that SOE has been, is, and will be constantly making changes to its games. You further acknowledge that SOE can and will, in its discretion, modify features, functions or abilities of any element of the game or any Virtual Goods (which may, among other things, make the Virtual Goods substantially more effective or functional, or less effective or functional, more common or less common, or eliminated entirely)."

I'm not saying that you have to be, or even should be, happy about changes that they make. And just because you disagree with their reasoning doesn't mean that there isn't a reason. And while you might not find their reason compelling, that doesn't mean that it wasn't compelling to the development team.

Conversely, just because you don't agree with an idea, doesn't make it a bad idea.

Worth avoiding is completely a subjective assessment. Something that you might find annoying or "worth avoiding" might seem just fine to another. Likewise, something that you may consider engaging could bore somebody else to the verge of tears. We each have our own personal thresholds of the different things that are available in game. Because of this range of expectations and thresholds, the developers have to rely on a different metric - how the change will affect the game in the long term.

If you haven't noticed, there have been several things that were done in this expansion to try to make crafting relevant again. However, if someone has such a low threshold that they can't spend the extra 25-60 seconds per character to craft them daily*, then that means that there will be one less person speeding up the research, which benefits the crafters that have higher thresholds, because they will get the recipes faster. Because they get the recipes faster, they are able to sell the products for prices that are above costs - which wasn't the case for much of the rest of the post-SF tradeskills**. Because they are able to make decent profits, this encourages them to craft more - thus allowing the price to stabilize.

An additional benefit - from a game design perspective - is that having folks decide not to speed the pace of researchers both slows the rate at which the items are introduced into the game and reduces the number of additional TA potions added daily. This has the effect of extending the gameplay over a longer span of time.

Am I saying that they changed it with the intended purpose of encouraging folks not to do the quest? No, not really. They probably had a completely unrelated reason for introducing the change - and likely a valid one, at that.

Their biggest mistake wasn't making the change - it was underestimating how much whining bellyaching complaining there would be in the forums as a result.

* Seriously, 25-60 seconds difference in exchange for four hours being cut off of the research time, and that doesn't seem like a good trade-off?
** The only things that made decent profits were those that had a high risk of losing the items and those that required access (for components) to content for which many of the crafters didn't have sufficient backup (in the form of a raid force) to acquire. Much of the remaining items were generally involved in a race to the bottom as far as price is concerned.

25-60 secs? lol

zone into house... crash. relog. get quest. zone back into guildhall. make item. zone back into house... crash. relog. give item to apprentice.get a stack of twenty fruit for your efforts. zone back into guildhall. continue with your normal eq2 day.

And just because you think its a good idea Roth, doesn't make it one either.

Well that crashing thing is a personal issue and should be fixed. When content is made, its made up with everything working correctly in mind

Which has been the case maybe 60% of the time since I started playing.

And I was just pointing out that 25-60 secs was a BS made up number, even if everything is "working as intended".

Yeah, one should argue seriously. 25 seconds? No one has a machine that gets the UI loaded, has time to /hail, start a craft, load their recipe list, pick the right one, click through the 2-3 rounds (for the first line only), type in "/camp next alt", and wait for the timer and the subsequent login. The second /hail and accepting the reward can be done while /camping to save time. (Consider that if everything on that list could be done in zero seconds, there's still at least 28 seconds worth of sit-around-waiting-for-things-to-happen time in there...)

One might be able to get the same effect that fast, by finding someone on the broker selling 20 stringy meat for 9gp total...

And arguing that the research reduction time is relevant for someone with a stable of crafters is wrong. I'm already researching redundant stuff (3rd alt able to make the "mind" weapon converter, etc). All the new recipes except those 7 are purchasable or mob-dropped. And most of the recipes should really be locked to particular classes/skills (grandmasters really belong to the appropriate scholars, and most people only have one adorner.) Since my adorner is my jeweler, I have 6 crafters who are just researching because...

This isn't so much a "quest" as a variant goblin lottery (pay 9gp, get a chance at an essence). Treating it as a quest will get you... well, this thread.

To clarify, that 25-60 seconds was the difference between the new way of doing things for level 100 TA crafting* and the old way of doing things for TA crafting** for levels below 100***. That estimate includes the time it takes to get from the apprentice to the crafting table, then craft the item up to four bars, and then return to the apprentice. If the TA is in the same room as the crafting tables, then the difference will be closer to the 25 seconds than the 60 seconds - unless one has some serious connection issues.

Including the rest of the time**** isn't really necessary, since those actions would have been taken regardless of whether one is crafting them daily or making a slew of them at one time.

* Unless someone makes things harder upon themselves by placing their apprentices in a house that doesn't also have crafting tables and depots.
** Again, this is unless someone sets their things in such a manner to make it horribly inefficient - such as the aforementioned separation of the tables/depots from the TA, or even something like placing the apprentice on the opposite end of the house from the tables and depots. (I'm not implying that one should be prevented from setting things up however inefficiently they desire - but if one chooses to do so, then one should not blame SOE for the excessive amount of time it takes to utilize that setup.)
*** Thus my use of the words extra and difference*****.
**** UI loading time, the time to hail, and camping time.
***** I apologize that my previous use of the words extra and difference didn't make it clear that I wasn't expressing the entire time it takes from login to logout, but only the additional time that one spends by crafting them daily. Next time I'll try to accentuate them by underlining them and using both bold emphasis and italics.

It used to be so simple. Level your crafter and then buy all the recipes. Wham bam thank you mam...you don't need to keep track! Just by knowing what type of crafter your character is was all you needed to know to figure out if they could make something. Not anymore....Is it really too much to ask for SOE to be consistent? There have been so many decisions lately that make players so angry they either leave game or refuse to give SOE more money or just get annoyed every time the topic is raised in chat channels or have to do the daily quest. Why change the apprentice daily to be different for levels 96-100? Just because people think it takes everyone only 25 more seconds more (yeah right! keep dreaming) to craft each item daily doesn't matter. Its annoying! It doesn't have to be annoying. Be consistent and just let people use massive production which they earned.

Why make it so difficult to know if you can craft something and what rares and how many rares it takes to craft the item? Why make it so you have to have multiple crafting houses due to fuel depot size? What am I gaining by having to craft something daily instead of using massive production only for level 96-100? Don't get distracted while doing your alt hop because you might get the quest and forget to do it cuz someone sends you a tell asking you "can you make this?" and then you switch characters and now the next day you assume you are supposed to make a toolbelt but nope you forgot to do the quest the day before so you really have to make a basket. You cannot see what an apprentice is researching and how long before completed unless you are on the character that owns the apprentice....how about allowing anyone to see the progress of each apprentice. Characters can have 3 different apprentices. Now you have crafters having to deposit harvesting mats into their personal depots so they can make apprentice items instead of just depositing them into their guild hall depot because they don't want to have to zone to house to get daily quest, zone into guild hall to craft item, zone back to house to turn in quest (remember don't get distracted). The reasoning for having a fuel depot not hold all fuels so people are not spending too much time alone in their houses just doesn't make sense if now you are having people needing to zone multiple times for no reason at all. And now I have to have all crafting stations in multiple houses. But I need status to buy the crafting stations...get ready to grind grind grind more. Don't forget to make sure the research is completed because you can do the daily quest before the progress bar actually displays without have to pop open the research window and then realize dang it I needed to grab the researched recipe and pick a new one but now I just lost 8 hours of speeding up time. Don't forget to remember which crafting station to go to now that provisioners use more than a stove, etc. Why, just...why?!? And now you want me to craft items daily instead of a massive batch but for only level 96-100? What! Why? Ugh!

I would actually pay to have ONE crafting station that makes anything and everything! Maybe that can be your next part in the Qho questline.

I don't think it is too much to ask that SOE doesn't change something to be annoying on a daily basis for no good reason.

I keep looking at the recipes and tbh there is almost nothing worth researching. With the amount of tokens we'll all end up with, we can buy the rune recipes straight from Far Seas. I have already done that.

The essence things, yay, shame about the mats. I have logged my now 10 (lol don't ask) level 100 crafters every day purely for a chance of an essence thingie, nope, nada, zilch, but thanks for all the fish!!!!!!!!!

Crafting 96-100 is a huge pita in my humble opinion. They've made it all about the mats, which are near impossible to get.

It takes some time to get stuff, but it's far from impossible.

Only if luck is on your side, Dev.

It is nothing for me to use a bountiful potion and harvest for the whole six hours straight. I am a harvesting freak, I actually enjoy it. I still have not received a spellshard or whatever else there is.

I have done the apprentice daily again religiously on ten toons, for the last few weeks, maybe a month, in the hope of just ONE essence thingie.

So while they are far from impossible, they are beyond stupidity in rarity.