Let’s Talk Tradeskills in Game Update 63!

Now that Game Update 63 is on the live servers, we wanted to revisit tradeskills with a bit more depth. A ton of tradeskill content was added as part of this Game Update, so we sat down with Designer Brian “Omougi” Ferguson to get his take on it all.
Piestro: So this was a big update as far as tradeskill items are concerned?
Omougi: Yeah, we added several hundred new tradeskill items, some very specialized. We expect some of these items to be useful for quite some time to come, especially special clicky items and consumables!
Piestro: Everyone loves clickies. What sort of clickies did you folks add?
Omougi: Two for each archtype, group and raid versions. An example is the Tank focused one, which gives 20% damage reduction for 12 seconds for the group clickie, and 25% for the raid version. It essentially gives them another defensive cooldown.
Piestro: Tanks can always use another "OH NO" button!
Omougi: Healers get one as well. It puts a ward and a heal on their defensive target (quite a large one) so it can help out in those nasty situations.
Piestro: So what are some favorite items that you added, or particularly interesting ones?
Omougi: Well carpenters got a lot of housing items for sure this update. We worked with carpenters especially during Beta to make sure they felt they were getting enough. Initially it was a bit light, so we went back and worked with the artists to make sure they had plenty of unique and interesting stuff!
Piestro: Very cool!
Omougi: We really liked that we hit poisons and potions in this update too. This was an area where our existing items weren't scaling as well as we'd like. It's important to make sure that the items are relevant but not necessary. We're much happier with the balance now. We don't want people to feel like they need to carry a bag full of consumables, but if they really want to go that extra mile and eke out an extra few percent of effectiveness they can.
Piestro: Potions are something that we've seen a lot of feedback on the forums about, and more effective potions that are more relevant is a pretty big deal. How about scholar type classes?
Omougi: Sages and Alchemists will be very busy making everyone's spell upgrades for sure! Another thing we did this update was to make sure that the base gear created through tradeskills was much more competitive compared to drop gear. We spent some time mapping out exactly where we wanted this gear to fall in progression so that it would be useful and interesting without eliminating drops from viability. There isn't a full set of Mastercrafted gear available, but there is enough so that you could go in to a group instance and do just fine. These aren't dead slots because they aren't quested gear.
This affects jewelers, armorers, weaponsmiths, everyone. We also put in new bags, which is always a crowd pleaser. I'm actually using them myself to do testing!
Piestro: So this isn't a full "Tier" of crafting correct?
Omougi: Correct. We did mix in some things and front load some of the tradeskills a bit because we felt they could use it a bit more. For example with poisons we felt they needed a little more right away. They'll be a little sparser towards the end of the tier but that gives us some room to potentially make some new poisons.
Piestro: What item would you say has the most "cool factor"?
Omougi: I really like tanks, so what jumps to mind for me is the Hammer of Concussive Omens. It has a hate gain proc, that buffs your groups DPS, gives you a damage reduction effect, and potentially knocks your enemies down. It's a unique effect, but not something that's irreplaceable. The Dragonbone Guard is another fun one, with a nice proc that goes off when you get hit. For scouts I really like the clicky, with a buff that really increases the damage you do for a short period of time. It's a nice thing, but definitely not required.
Piestro: So one of the things we've noticed is the food and drink is much nicer this time around. Was this intentional?
Omougi: In Age of Discovery stat food became much easier to acquire, and this took a little bit away from handcrafted food. This time around we've created a clear progression of food that starts with handcrafted and improves with group and raid tradeskill apprentice food. You can get the same effects, to a lesser degree, with handcrafted food. If you're looking for optimal you will probably want tradeskill apprentice food, but for general running around handcrafted food gives you a lot of the same bonuses.
Piestro: So let's go with the controversial question... If you only had one level 92 tradeskiller in GU63, what would it be?
Omougi: *pauses to think deeply*
Gninja: Asking him to play favorites huh?
Piestro: It'll help get discussion started!
Gninja: Just say Assassin.
Piestro: *laughs*
Omougi: I want to say Alchemist. They got a little more attention this Game Update and I think that what they can make should be pretty desirable. Everyone gets something awesome, but I like the idea of making consumables that are viable for anyone doing any level of content.
Piestro: Is there anything you'd like to say to tradeskillers or anything you want them to all check out?
Omougi: I'd say go check out the Withered Lands tradeskill content, and get their new recipes. They should all get their Tradeskill Apprentices too, and talk to one another. Find out who is making what, and carve out a niche on your server!
Piestro: Thanks Omougi!

The sad thing is that's there's a whole lot of recipes but nearly no tradeskill content (aka "faction levelling", "quests" and so on, the things that get you there) :/

A LOT of the content for tradeskill is dependent upon the specialty drops in Skyshrine either contested, group zones, or raid zones. Not much a tradeskiller can do about that.

I also noticed a few errors in the recipes such as the sash and belts crafted by jewelers (level 91 & 92 recipes). In the past, these items have always been crafted on the loom. The recipe calls for use of the loom for the new level items as well, but when you go to the loom to create them, the recipes are not there. They do, however, show up when targeting the work bench. It you start to craft them on the work bench, the event icons are those belonging to the loom. So it doesn't work.

"Piestro: So let's go with the controversial question... If you only had one level 92 tradeskiller in GU63, what would it be?"
Mmm, let's see.
What about "It doesn't matter" ?
You don't need a 92 TSer for anything in GU63, a level 90 can scribe every 91/92 recipes for his/her class and use the solo/group research apprentice (I don't have the raid researcher yet but I heard that lvl 90 TS was enough for him too)
And while the "lazy" part in me is glad I only have to ran a 30 min questline per crafter to max their knowledge, it just doesn't feel right.

Piestro wrote:

I'm not sure how you can say that with a straight face. 6 quests is not a "ton of content".

feldon30 wrote:

I'm with Feldon on this one, was seriously disappointed. New recipes are all well and good, but I didn't even take a day to get through the new stuff with all 9 trades.

Flidias wrote:

I think they're counting the new recipes that no one really wants aside from bags, potions and expert upgrades (and some of the furniture that doesn't look as if it has low res textures) as the content. The quests were just speed bumps.

I have to say, when i first saw this article on eq2's website, i thought they were talking about a "new" patch they had done while i was away this week. I was all excited to check out the new stuff till i realized it was the same stuff from the last big patch. As others have said, i dont see how you can honestly call this a "ton" of content-one quest line that takes all of maybe 30 mins to complete is not a ton-a "ton" of content to me would be on par with the shawl quest, or the harvesting cloak quest, or the pack pony, or the quests in stonebrunt to get the clicky evac items, or the ship out questline-i wish we could have more of those kinds of quests. Dont get me wrong, i think you folks did an amazing job with the new zone(s), they're really nice looking-but i just think that pure crafters got kind of shafted on this update

Cyliena wrote:

I advertised in open chat, and watched for the opportunity to make experts for fuel cost only (I needed powders)and didn't get a single taker, one person wanted some but didn't have the rares so he asked if I had rares to sell to him, I didn't have any and apparently he didn't want to pay the broker price for them. He apologized and said "I'll just buy research reducers my masters directly from the SC shop" *I fixed my own post here
Of course these don't have any impact on the game in any way .

I have to question how in touch with the playerbase the SOE people really are. It's not like the paucity of TS content hasn't been discussed already; I guess they missed that.
In the light of that discussion, a post such as this smacks of them trying to convince themselves, and us, that there REALLY was a "ton" of TS content in the GU.
So either they missed the feedback, or are aware of that feedback yet want to try to convince TSers they are just wrong.
Sometimes it is better to just let sleeping dogs lie; this probably should have been one of those cases.

omougi said:

So my Warlock Tailor got recipes for hats, boots and cuffs.
One of the very first quests in WL rewarded her with Corrupted Cloth Boots (wearable @90 - rather than 91 for the MC cloth boots).
(and Colossal Reactants make forearms, iirc). So what was that about them not being dead slots???

So I take it this is only for level 90 tradeskillers??

They're counting recipes as content. Its a creative use of 'content'.

I also don't think its working. For example we've been clearing every EM raid zone every time the timer resets since SS launched. I was the 2nd person in guild to get the raid RA, and completed my first recipe last week.
So far from all the killing we've done, we're not even close to having the components to make any of the items we've researched.
That would be great if the items were just OMG uber, but they're not and don't reflect the rarity of the components.
I think I need 3 dragon scales for the recipe I picked up, and in all the killing we've done, we've only looted a single one.
As others have said, these recipes are not content that can be consumed, what tradeskilling is missing is content to be consumed. Kill these aweful RA's and have tradeskillers go do stuff again to get recipes.

Piestro wrote:

I'm so glad you are making sure potions can keep up with the mudflation of stats. Its just too bad that some classes spells are not given the same treatment. Its laughable that illy's mana tap gives a whopping 86 mana per tick. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the 40k+ mana people are running around with.
P.S. Is it really content to have nothing to do for 18 days while your researcher does his work?

I would like to know why as a Woodworker I only have the ability to Research Furniture on the non Raid RA.. (except the 2 weapons.... And where are the bows?? (Except the Mythical which I havent seen drop in the last 15 days)

Carpenters got a lot of stuff? Many extremely slightly different copies of the same thing is not a lot of stuff. The need for grps/raids to be able to get material for crafting (or pay out the behind to buy off broker) is baloney. Overall the tradeskill update was a joke. And as others have said the few tradeskill quests, 2 researchers (one that you have to raid to get and only 1 needed item drops for entire raid each time) is not "a ton of content."

Maewyn@Unrest_old wrote:

It's tradeskill content in exactly the same way the spell research tab on our knowledge window is adventure content...

I was under the impression that the new raid elite apprentices were so the raid guilds could make their own things. They just have to have 3 crafter archtypes who don't have to have done any crafting quests. No need for all 9 crafter types anymore and leveling a crafter is relatively painless these days They will be able to get the mats and make the select few high end things without having to deal with the non adventuring crafting community. A well organized guild should be able to have most all of the recipes available to themselves in a short time.
I thought this last bit of change to crafting was to set up a separate crafting system for the end gamer; to make it more palatable to the raider who didn't want to craft or deal with crafters. Which could be a good thing for both sides since there seems to be a sibling rivalry thing going on between them
As a crafter type I was actually thinking this was a good thing

yah, carpenters got nothing but house items with these recipes i would have rather had some new boxes instead of a ton of versions of 5-10 different HOUSE ITEMS dont get me wrong, the new craftable stairs are GREAT, but they could have added more USEFUL things to the carpenter recipes tailors got new bags and ammo containers, but carpenters got nothing but HOUSE ITEMS!