Hypothetical question(s)!

[p] First off, I think that both mergers are good ideas. The classes fit together well and it really should have been this way since the start.[/p][p]Second, you mention that you will consider people with multiple skilled characters. This is clearly a given. However, I think there needs to be some discussion on what to do about people who have just one of the affected professions, but may have chosen that profession specifically because a partner chose the other. If a husband became the armorer and the wife became the weaponsmith, each would have an account with only one tradeskiller, but collectively they would suffer having a duplicated profession. Had they known, they might have chosen an armorer and a jeweler, for example. This is, remember, a MMORPG, and people are encouraged to team up and pick complementary professions, not simple do everything on their own.[/p][p]So unless you are prepared to allow anyone with a(n) armorer/weaponsmith/woodworker/carpenter to respect, I think this idea is not feasible. And please note, by respect I mean a 70 armorer to a 70 sage, for example. Expecting that 70 armorer to become a 9 artisan would be absolutely heartless.[/p][p]Thanks for floating ideas [/p][p] [/p]

I wanted to be a Blacksmith when I grew up, just as I was in old Everquest. The problem was that in Everquest 2, I had to choose whether or not I could make weapons or armor - but not both.

For those who say "don't combine them, fix them" I pose this question... How? Be specific, and don't say "take something from someone else and ..." I support the change of all 4 classes to 2. Increased competition may happen, but the usefulness in the trade skills will equal the rest.

Short Answer I do not think that either merger would currently be a good idea. Medium Answer There are problems with those classes which merging would address. However there are other ways the problems might be solved which seem to me likely to lead to a better game. Merging classes would also feel like a further degradation of tradeskilling, and it would appear like SoE are not willing to put the effort in to get the current classes to work. Long Answer I have both a woodworker and a carpenter. Both classes are short of recipes, so merging is an obvious, simple, easy solution. But there is another obvious solution - adding new recipes. It is not as simple and easy, but should be tried first, as it is likely to lead to a fuller richer game. It is not as is it is hard to come up with possibilities. One thing that would work for three of the classes is to bring back the "Secrets of ..." and extend the idea to higher tiers. Allow the Secrets of ... books to drop anywhere a master might, and allow the sepecial components to drop anywhere a rare might, but less frequently. Make the products legendary in quality. Woodworker Woodworker made charged items (totems) and wands (which are useful to some classes up to T4, and possibly beyond that in PvP). There are charged wands in the game, as quest rewards in Bloodlines. These charged wands damage an entire encounter, not just an individual. Is is possible to purchase Bloodlines recipe books for spells. So why not add a Bloodlines recipe book allowing woodworkers to make similar charged wands (one of each type). If successful the idea could be extended to other tiers. Since current wands become less useful from T4 up - add new ones from T4/5 upwards that would be more useful such as ones that add a bit of damage to spells doing damage of the same type. Perhaps also staffs that add to healing spells. At higher tiers totems that transform you more completely into an animal, similar to the druids animal form ability (though weaker), such a bear one that stifles you, increases you in-combat regen significantly, and and gives you significant boost to mellee attacks. Perhaps it would only work if you were not wearing any metal armour (chain or plate). A bat one might give you in-combat power regen boost, stifle you, a smaller mellee boost and let you glide like a fae. Musical instruments that can be equipped in secondary/ranged slots by bards and have +Agi/+Int. Carpenter A Bloodlines recipe book that lets you make various sizes of coffins for your house, which would probably be popular with necros. Tradeskill stations for your house limited as to the tier of stuff they can be used to make, so that a fir workbench would only work for recipes up to level 29. Special storage containers that can be put in your house vault then placed in the house like the broker containers. Larger houses for the ultra rich might increase the demand for furniture to fill them. Weaponsmith The first thing that needs to be done for weaponsmiths is to fix transmuting. That is remove the crafting from transmuting and give the transmuter's recipes to the weaponsmiths. That would make transmuting simpler and more logical, and release transmuted components for use by tradeskill classes (instead of them mostly being used to level up the transmuting). Weaponsmiths would not just get more recipes, but they would be recipes that are desirable by high levels. Make Darathar scale like the guild writ raids. So instead of being a easy target for groups miuch higher level than he was originally intended for he will be a challenge. So getting the special wyrmsteel weapons to fight him would become something worth doing. Also allow weaponsmiths to make wyrmsteel adornments that can be used with higher tier weapons. This would also stop the fight with Darathar seeming as anticlimatic as it did when my main got his prismatic. Allow weaponsmsiths who have completed the L&L quest to buy recipes for bane weapons/adornments that do extra damge to creatures of that type. This would require a bit of adventuring, but if the creatures can be found in T1 it is no worse than the many HQs that require level 9 crafting. This could be done for woodworkers too, since they also make weapons. Move ammo creation to weaponsmiths after adding other new recipes to woodworkers.

Done

Because handcrafted is cheap and easy to get and has stats almost to order. Mastercrafted really falls into the same area but, since we lack anything better at the moment, it's hard to not be disappointed. Ok, people if you support this change why? It doesn't actually affect anything but leveling. Armorers will now be competing with former weapon smiths and both with be competing for the slim market of armor that sells. If they find a way to make both have viable products, what makes this a better idea than just leaving the classes alone? For woodworkers and carps, the proposal does much the same. Woodworker weapons don't do too much better than weapon smith items and carps have their own little niche(Carps are carps ,mostly because they love what they make, not any practicality). Combining the two offers the flooding of the rather small carpentry market and with the changes coming to ammo, woodworking already stands to be really competitive when the arrow changes come through and flood the market with really cheap ammo. With an actual review of the classes off the table, what makes this so much better than the current situation?

lol Deson, love the signature. :-D

Jerril wrote:

I'm not sure if it's devs or SOE. I don't think devs can go through with any large change without approval. Agree with the bold.

Having a 70 carpenter alt myself, I say no thanks. I'd rather some loving be givin to my class instead of this hypothetical change. I think it would trivialize tradeskilling even more than it has been since the start of this game.

Ive been saying it since bloodlines came out.... GIVE ME A COFFIN FOR MY HOUSE! NOW!!

Heh, you know the irony of this change if it goes through is that the new classes would have recipe lists on par with scholars. My take on the whole thing though is if they won't go back and fix the issues that arose from designing the classes behind numbers instead of viability, we only end up shifting issues around.

Another idea for Carpenters (and Provisioners)

Allow Carpenters to make herb gardens - boxes of plants that can be fertilized and watered and produced herbs. The tier of the herb should be the lowest of the water, fertilizer and box.

Allow provisioners to use herbs in special recipes - perhaps in advanced provisioner books available at levels ending in 9.
The resulting foods would need to be a bit better than current ones, since the ingredients will be more expensive, perhaps a 10% boost to the regen rate, or 20% on the stats.

[p]Weaponsmiths were nerfed beyond repair (my husband has a 70 weaponsmith that he pretty much gave up on short of twinking low-level alts). A merger there would be a good thing. I don't really know enough woodworkers to get what I need sometimes (I'm a priest, and need things like butterfly and chameleon totems constantly to get around), and as a level 70 Carpenter, I would not be upset at finding my class merged with theirs. I was really disappointed while leveling up at the small number of recipes available, to the point that I would never have finished leveling the class if not for heritage quest obsession. People that have 15 different crafters (not that we know people like that) might be upset. Overall, I think it would be a good thing for the game as a whole. [/p][p]Chalk me up as a "100% for-it".[/p][p] [/p]

I am against it as a woodworker, I can understand why a weapon smith would want it.. My sales have been in totems, its the one thing thats left that I can sell for a decent price that people will continue buying.. Totems of the beholder make me more than provisioners do per combine, and more overall than any other trade skill class.. I would like to see more types of totems come out, and the ability to stack them.

[p]I like the idea but my only problem with it is that carpenters already have it made. It's easier to level a carpenter than a provisioner (for example) because they get so much experience from new combines. Provisioners only get 2-4 recipes per level (example) and have no "advanced" books to make a first time recipe and gain that bonus experience. Also carpenters make some really expensive things at high levels. If you own a house you are forced to buy their goods to get your status reduction down. [/p][p]So in short I think carpenters already have an unfair advantage.[/p]

[p]First off, I love the idea. Weaponsmith especially has very, very little viability on its own these days.[/p][p]Now, far be it for me to evoke the name of the beast (Starts with W, ends with W, has an O in the middle), but this does have a bit of that flavor. Just a hint. That's not a bad thing at all, I'm just mentioning it because I'm hoping it could eventually have more than a hint.[/p][p]How so? Well, over in yon MMO, when you reach the top end of your craft in Blacksmithing, you get to specialize in Weapons or Armor and what you can make after specializing is very impressive. Weaponsmiths can further specialize in Hammers, Swords or Axes, and the quality of what you can make after this specialization is again even more impressive.[/p][p]The best part, however, is that top end crafters can make very good items (Fabled by EQ2 terms) that only they themselves can use. It's a bit of a reward for grinding up to the cap of your tradeskill. In my opinion, that would be really nice to see here in EQ2. Give us some sort of No Trade rewards that only we can make. Maybe a Fabled sword that uses lots of rares and a Fabled transmuting item... Empowered Acrylia Inlaid Xegonite Greatsword? [/p][p]Anyway, it's a thought. Would be nice to have a reason to get a character to the tradeskill cap other than strugling to sell wares.[/p]

Good idea Terron! I like it.

[p]Been reading through the whole thread here and have nothing particular to add that hasn't been covered better by others more qualified to speak to those classes. So just to be brief and throw my 2c in there..[/p][p]I think this is a wonderful idea and I wholly support it![/p]

I have a T7 armorer

Please do not merge the Armorer with the Weaponsmith

Combining classes without providing new receipes for high demand products will only penalize armorers.

Before choosing an armorer I carefully researched the items that could be made by each tradeskilling class and the market on my server for crafted armor.

Your proposal would cause a significant increase in competition for the goods I produce with no corrisponding increase in sellable (high demand) products.

Is competition bad - no, but a sudden large scale increase in competition is not fair.

The result of merging the armorer and weaponsmith tradeskill classes would be a backdoor nerf to armorers.

I have not read the entire thread so please forgive me if I am duplicating arguments others have made.

Ilucide, look at it this way. What does your hypothetical proposal actually do? What changes under your proposal? 1) Demand goes nowhere. Demand for all products will stay exactly the same. (Actually, demand might actually go down, because, for example, Weaponsmiths who currently need to contract an Armorsmith to create armor will no longer need to do so.) 2) Supply goes up. The number of crafters in one of the new professions will not be exactly the sum of the number in the old professions, but it will be a lot higher than either was. This will greatly increase supply. Basic economics: what happens when supply goes up and demand stays the same (or goes down)? That's right, prices go down. And this is supposed to help crafters? Let's see what else changes. 3) Number of available recipes for some individual crafters goes up. This appears to be the primary beneficial change in your proposal. It allows crafters to level up faster because of increased chances for discovery XP. There are many ways to accomplish this same goal without merging these professions. Besides which, grinding isn't supposed to be the primary method of advancement in this game, anyway. Or so it's been said. I also don't understand the alleged similarity between woodworkers and carpenters. "Carpenter" is perhaps the wrong word for that profession; "Furnisher" would be more accurate. This is because Carpenters do not only work with wood! Most furniture is made from wood, true, but Carpenters also create vases, chandeliers, sconces, pots, rugs, paintings, tents, and numerous other non-wood house items. Carpenters' reaction arts include one called "metallurgy", and Carpenters' skill is called "Sculpting". The only connection between Carpenters and Woodworkers is that a lot of furniture is made from wood. But certainly not all of it. The decline you are seeing in tradeskilling viability is not due to Weaponsmiths not getting enough recipes on which to grind. The problems go much deeper than that, and your proposal will, at best, only delay the demise of crafting. The problems of crafting go back all the way to the removal of interdependency. Back then, yes, it was some work to find a weaponsmith to craft carbonite spikes for you, but you could find one. But now, I can't even find a weaponsmith to craft a feysteel weapon. It seems like everyone has nine crafters, and thus are self-sufficient, and very few people craft on commission. Very few people LFW in the crafting channel. These are the problems with crafting, and these won't be fixed by combining some of the professions. Ironically, I think the number of people with a full suite of crafters has gone UP since interdependency was removed, rather than down as one might have expected. The bottom dropped out of most crafting markets after LU24, to the point where selling items on the broker is a virtually profitless enterprise, resulting in the need for grinding to level up, resulting in the complaints that some classes don't have enough recipes on which to grind. Your proposal is a band-aid, at best, on the last of these results. To the extent that this proposal hides the underlying problem, it's a very bad idea. Powers &8^]