The 20% materials conservation Prestige ability has always worked with Mass Production; it's even a prerequisite to get to it on the same prestige tree. And I know you can't get either of the use-nothing procs when Mass Producing. I think you combined two different things I was asking, and answered that new question that I wasn't asking.
Funny, I didn't know all of crafting was ToV. If that is the case, then crafting has been a 90% failure for all of EQ2's existence. Why? Because crafting hasn't been useful to end-game players for the vast majority of it. Crafting is mostly focused on players leveling up to max level. It is very rare in the long history of the game that we actually craft items that end-game players want. This has become a trend in the last few expansions, but I hardly consider ToV to be a reversal. Still crafting is useful in ToV. Crying that effects that reduce the use of DE and saying we don't make anything useful totally ignore that we're crafting the upgrade gems and purple runes for reduced costs. Everybody wants reduced costs. Sure the recipes are priced to where if your only making things for yourself that you'll do slightly better than break even. That is because these are probably meant for crafters that actually work for other people. Once you go beyond what a single character would use the savings becomes substantial. While I do agree that there should be random procs that give us a full refund of all components (including DE), I can understand the developers position. Something that I think many of us fail to even attempt to consider. Time sinks that have decent rewards keep players involved. Creating loopholes in them isn't really in their best interest. And as a last note: Every MMO has time sinks. If you consider time sinks to be a sign of failure then every MMO on the market fails according to Enymac's definition. If you think you know of a MMO (or any game with levels and progression) that doesn't have time sinks it just means you aren't looking at it close enough.
Too bad, last time I looked was in Beta and at that time they weren't Heirloom. Still, you should be able to commission craft them for other players.
A fix for all this, would be to actually remove the Draconic Incense from the equation, replacing the fuel for the combine with effulgent coal. Just make the required amount of Etyma for the recipe the primary component. You did that with the celestial motes from arena of the gods, so the mechanic is in the game. Currently you can benefit with your AA conservation of mass and the coldain prayer shawl while crafting with celestial motes but no benefits from systematic conservation. If you work the same magic with the etyma as you did with the celestial motes, you can turn back on the AA and shawl procs and not worry about unintended "fuel" returns from Systematic Conservation (right side of tradeskill prestige) because the fuel would be Effulgent coal and not Etyma's.
Just let this happen. It's not that big of a deal. With CoM and CPS, you get a what? 6% chance of getting it back? Wow, that's game breaking right? <insert sarcasm here> Really, in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a deal. I say make it so.
Since the prestige and shawl procs don't work on the recipes using etyma, would you please remove the chance for them to proc as well? This has been done with recipes that are 'immune' from not using the materials in the past. It is really frustrating to get the visual effect and know it is totally meaningless for these recipes.
Damn, was sent to this thread by a GM and i still have to say what the hell? The Coldain prayer shawl required over a month of faction grinding at 500 per day and i've done it on 8 of my crafters. The nerf of it's only unique ability because they gave everyone 5% mass conservation with AAs really ticks me off. The item was never a problem. 1 in 20 rares back? who cares I have 400 more from daily apprentice tasks. Screwing with the crafter's holy grail? I think that if I continue crafting, I'll be spending plat on gold memberships instead of cash.
As of Sunday the proc is still going off for etyma items. it has not gone off in over 50 other combines so far. Changing the shawl to 1% proc rate is just unforgivable. If it is "Working as intended" give me my 45 etyma. Otherwise stop the proc from triggering on these recipies.
