Hypothetical question(s)!

[p]I am heavy into crafting. I have one of every class, ranging from 20-70. Hypotheticaly, these questions scare me. Why take away classes when it is alot easier to fix them? The HARD part is.. HOW?[/p][p] [/p][p]1. Weaponsmith[/p][p] I can not say this enought, so I'll say it one more time. WHIPS. PLAYERMADE WHIPS. NEW weapons that are PLAYERCRAFTED ONLY. Like Chain whips, doublebladed sword, or even a simple crossbow!![/p][p] [/p][p]2. Carps.[/p][p]BESIDES adding new housing items.. why not give them something that ALOT of players want, like housing items that DO something.. could be from giving minor spell buff(like the god quest stuff did) to some nice stuff like glowing 'magical' effects on the person. Also, why not add something else as simple as mailing boxes. These boxes could hold X amount of items that can be mail to a person for one simple price, 1s, instead of 50cp for each item. These boxes will hold X+Tier about of items (2-8 rares can hold 4-16) these boxes are mail to a person, that person will get the items and the box will destroy itself(NODROP(can't get rid of it),LORE(can't mail it back),NOZONE(it will go byebye when you zone) that way there will be a market for them. As for selling them on the broker, it would depend on how much time this would save, verse the cost. Would a player pay more money to mail out ONE letter then to sit there and mail out someone a whole set of armor?? That crafter, or even the player, could add in the cost of 'Shipping and Handleing' ...oh yeah.. alot of Carps want...COUCHES!! Nuff said..[/p][p] [/p][p]3 Woodworkers[/p][p] [/p][p]Now comes the hard part... or is it? Why can't woodworkers make something simple like a wooden charms that could give a player simple bonuses from +1 defection, or +1 parry. Do not go with stats, as there are enought charms that do that(DOLLS) go with skills that people could want, or even saves. Why not have a wooden shield charm(T7) that gives +100 vs heat and +7 to defense, or wooden heart charm, that could give +5 Ministration, +5 Subjugation. See... something that is unique, and adds to the class![/p][p] [/p][p]So.. Hypothetical, let's not destroy people classes by marging them, and instead, let's come together and think how to better them and make them feel needed by players.[/p][p] [/p]

With all 9 tier 7 crafters, a transmuter and tinkerer this question has me conflicted. I think it's a good idea, and something that should have been done from the beginning of the game. But having all the crafters already I'd hate to have two duplicates. Kire

I think Carpentry is the real word, hehe. Goodness knows, it would help some of the hardest TS classes. Cloaks and fashion-clothes made my tailor really not bad at all, but I was still so shocked when I rolled a jeweler, it was crafting on Easy Mode... I think I a perfect world the Tradeskill classes themselves would be more broad -- something like Smith -- but have some sort of speccing system kind of like crafter AA. So one Smith would be far better at making breastplates than daggers, and another would be the go-to guy for swords... I wonder if it's even *remotely* feasible to consider such an idea 2 1/2 years into the game, though. On a personal level, such a change wouldn't affect me. My crafters are a tailor, a provisioner, and a pair of scholars. But it might be the kind of thing that would get me to start that weaponsmith I've always needed but simply cannot bear the thought of levelling.

As a player with all 4 of the Ts classes in question I would just urge more variety in reciepies instead of merging them. Although the game failed, Horizons IMHO had it right. Everything should have been player made. All the best equipment should have been player made. MAybe with drop items from named but player made nontheless. That's what I would like to see instead of class mergers. Make the crafters in intergal part of the game.

When I first started playing, I created a weaponsmith for fun and profit. As I reached my 50's, I realized that meaningful profit was not going to happen. Dropped weapons were far superior, and less resource intensive, than anything I was ever going to be able to make. I have spoken to armorers, and they faced the same conclusion. I continued leveling out of sheer spite. I am now a 70 WS, and have sold one, count them, one T7 weapon off of LFW/chat advertising. I have sold 2 on the broker for darn near break-even pricing. In the same amount of time, I have sold about 20 of each tier, 3-5. If this combining is only going to get me twice the recipes nobody wants, my theoretical vote would have to be no.

[p]I got to lvl 35 carpentry before quitting due to the grind. More recipes would be great, and the combine of the 2 wood working classes makes sense. I vote you get started on it, or remove bonus xp from your first pristine combine on an item, sages practically make one of each, ding, repeat. If everyone has to make the same amount of items to gain a level, that problem is solved at least.[/p]

I fully support that. Nerf em!

[p]Merge the wpnsmith and blacksmith[/p][p]But leave the woodworker and carpenter seperate fro now. Instead just make instruments useful to bards for woodworkers. Put Song mods on them. And make them a secondary/ranged item. [/p]

Agreed. Not that I think it's wise, practical or anything else that makes it a good idea but, because then people will finally stop focusing on it and start paying attention to the actual issues with their classes.

I wonder if there's any way to increase the Pristine Bonus for the non-spell making classes? Nah, probably a coding nightmare.

[p]As a 69 weaponsmith, I favor combining weaponsmiths and armorers. I think it makes sense and would create an improved and more marketable class without creating a huge imbalance with other classes.[/p][p] I can't really speak to combining woodworkers and carpenters since I have neither, although I do find them interesting and reasonably distinct in purpose. I have been tempted to try both these classes, and would be even more tempted to try a combination of the two.[/p][p]If you do make one or both of these classes merge, you should probably also consider some mechanism to allow at least a one time tradeskill reclass option. If someone has both of the classes you merge, it would mean that they have wasted their time and resources to have two characters with the same tradeskill class.[/p][p] And let me join in the expressions of pleasure at having someone sincerely interested in improving tradeskill. Thanks Illucide.[/p]

Yup! That's where my thoughts are. It dissapoints me to the point I don't care about pristine xp at all on any crafting class I have. :cry:

I'd gladly level as slow as a (insert slow leveling class here) but have useful commons. Vendor dumping sucks. If I didn't use them for writs, I don't think I'd ever make them again.

Since we all discovered how cool Mastercrafted was back around Feb/March 2005, I figured commons were just grindage. Kinda like yard trash for adventurers.

[p] I think it would be an excellent idea. I currently do all 4 of the professions involved. And, although I'm not nearly as advanced as many of the folks who've replied so far (only at T4 in each of the 9 professions, just started playign in December), I do think it would really relieve some of the pain that is involved with the weaponsmithing/armorsmithing. Carpentry/woodworking hasn't been so bad, imho, but mainly I think that's because I enjoy both of those professions more and because wood is so much quicker to get in masses than ore(at least in the tiers i've gone through).[/p][p]I thank you for your post clarifying things (which i quoted above). It was making me very sad how many people seem to be opposed to the idea for the simple reason of "This wouldnt' benefit me any more, cause I've already done both to the max, so i want something too!" Although I see there point, it's a sad state of affairs when people oppose that which will help others for the simple reason that it is too late for the same thing to benefit them. Anyway, I'm glad you guys would look at a way to appease these negative ninnies.[/p][p] To the tailor who said it wouldn't be fair because armorsmiths would be ahead of them.. you might want to recheck your recipes. Tailors already get more extra things than armorsmiths, at least from tiers 1 to 4. If anything, it would even them back out with you.[/p][p] [/p]

[p] Alot sure are now. Depends on the situation and perspective. Why not we all just have common recipes called 'grind', no point to them. Skip the vendor, no fuel cost. That's what it amounts to. Of course that's figurative... but it would be easy to make recipes for an item that does nothing but serve for grinding purposes.[/p][p] [/p][p]Eh, I'm tired. but *shrug*[/p][p] [/p][p]*yells about duplicate post submission error... wth*[/p]

[p]Well, I had played an armorer the first time around in EQ2. I found myself ultimately frustrated with it.. indeed.. I will say that in any game I've ever tried to tradeskill as a blacksmith of some sort, I've always been frustrated. Usually its because its just entire impractical to keep that kind of tradeskill up to a point where it is useful to you/your friends (its always lagging behind..), and also because game developers REALLY dont like the idea that a tradeskiller could make weapons or armor comparable/better than adventured loot.[/p][p]So, just on general principle I support love for smithing.[/p][p]In this particular case, tailors had cloth/leather armor, and armorsmiths had chain/plate.. in theory, balanced. But tailors make bags and that is a huge product in and of itself. Would giving smiths weaponry help to achieve a happy balance? Probably. I like the idea because, as you say, most players don't purchase a ton of crafted weaponry atm.[/p][p]Now for woodworker vs. carpenter.. I agree the distinction is an odd one. But woodworkers seemed to have a lot of different things.. shields, wands, those nifty totems, and soon uber-arrows. I think that logically, the game works better with the two combined, if only because its such a blurry distinction.. but balance-wise it seems to me both tradeskills are viable (although a woodworker is indeed a rare breed).[/p][p]While we're on this subject.. can we talk about sage v. jeweler v. alchy? Alchemists used to have a near monopoly over the tradeskill system, back in the days of interdependence. I worry though.. have they been left behind their scholar-brethren in recent times?[/p]

Combining the classes would only help leveling, but would not solve the problems of the classes. Weapons will not be in more demand then before the combining, but there would be 2 times the crafters which could produce weapons then before. I would prefer to half the raw costs of the recipies, this would also help leveling but would not produce more competition on stuff which is in low demand.

[p] Well thats the standard now a days anyways, If your not in Mastercrafted, why are you playing ?? Rares are not rare like they once were. I remember when I used to go for days, weeks, upto a month without finding a rare. Now if i go on a harvest restocking binge, if I dont at least come out with 4-8, then I was having a bad day.[/p][p]Might as well remove all of the commons, and just leave the Mastercrafted in to be made, since there is no market for the commons, other than grind or writs. Why waste our time having to make them, and your time, as in the Devs to have to create the recipes. Of course, that is completely hypothetical.[/p][p]A merging of the classes is not the fix, its looking at peoples ideas, the players, the ones who chose that profession because that is what they wanted to be when they grew up. Saying what can we do to fix it, not take 2 smaller problems and combine them into 1 bigger problem.[/p][p]Of course the road will be split, some will love it, others hate it. Humans hate change, its in thier nature to hate it, they are comfortable with one thing, dont change it, because they are now lost little puppies until they find thier way again.[/p][p]Would I like the merge, No.[/p][p]Would I like to see the classes fixed, Yes.[/p][p]Its always about the adventure side first in this game, balance it, make the good uber stuff come in drops. The tradeskill side, there is no community there, lets just slowly destroy it, make it non existant, make it so they want to give it up, and not use it. This way, we can faze it out altogether. (not that I think this is the case)[/p][p]If you want the skills fixed, get rid of the uber drops from the trash mobs up in TT, make the Handcrafted better than the Treasured, make the Mastercrafted a bit better or even with the Legendary kinds. Give a reason for Tradeskilling to have some life in it. [/p][p]Other people before me have come up with some good ideas. It may be the time to listen to them.[/p][p]I have a lvl 70 Tailor, Woodworker, Alchemist, Sage, 58 Armorer, 30ish Carpenter, 35 Provisioner, and 1/2 these classes I dont make anything anymore, since there is no use for them, other than for myself, and a few guildies that ask for them.[/p][p]Steve[/p]

Handcrafted does still serve a purpose- it is great filler for spots you don't have treasured or better for. I definitely see a need to review and remove some classes but, this just wont do it. With changes this minor the same core issues will still be there; weapons still won't sell and armor will still be mediocre. Any changes to make the items more viable under this hypothetical could be done just as easily with the current structure. The only problem this would really address is level speed from pristine bonus. In absence of a total review, the cons of this outweigh the benefits.