State of the Tradeskills - last edit 13 May

I don't post much but I do read the forums now and then. I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to Domino for all the love and attention she's given us tradeskillers. I am sure that the original TS designers were a bunch of bachelors who lived in dirty houses decorated in early Salvation Army and wore only 80's rock band T-shirts and jeans.
I think some of the new armor designs are great, especially the plate and chainmail. You may have gotten plenty of complaints on robes, but I'd like to add my voice to this. I am an erudite conjuror. I am sick of the robes all looking exactly the same but for the colors! My husband's erudite wizard empire-waist robe makes him look like he has man-boobs. I know that some of the robe styling is race dependent, but could you please please give us a bit more variety! Especially get rid of the stitching in the chest area. It's too feminine for male casters.
Thanks again for everything you've done to make tradeskills more fun and rewarding and making the end result turn out better.

State of the Tradeskills?- I think they are in the best state they have ever been in
I havnt read every post in this thread, but a lot of the things I would like to see changed have already appeared in the top post. (Rare loam use/availability a main one for me at the moment, as im leveling my pally 70 through 80 )

I dont know if any of these ideas have alreayd been put forward but......
Now we have another couple of items with tradeskill enhancing items, it would be nice to see some recipes that are a little more difficult to craft, so that the items actually feel usefull.
Normal crafted items are perfectly ok the way they are. Maybe mastercrafted could be a little more difficult (increased penalty for missed counters, increased failure chances in normal craft rounds).
I was thinking along the lines of making some items a few levels higher than the book you get them in (i.e getting a lvl 90 recipe in a lvl 80 book). But the level 100 item we crafted in the epic quest didnt seem any more difficult than any other item (and, lets be honest, its no easier to craft a lvl 30 item, when you are level 80, than it is to make a lvl 80 item.).
Crafting writs with reduced time for a greater reward could work well to. Or even a reward gradient, the more time u have left, the better the reward.
And , to get a bit more advanced, maybe a special level 80 timed writ. The current top-ten fastest being posted in the tradeskill instance.
Prizes could be given for the fastest in each class per week. And even have inter-society competition. Every week, the society with the best average times, across all the classes wins a prize for the soceity , maybe a zone-wide buff for the week.
I would guess that this would take a lot of work to put together, but maybe something to think about for the future

DominoDev wrote:

Please consider a few, well chosen additions to poisons and potions in lower levels, too. I'm sure clerics who solo would appreciate thorns potions and solo scouts vitality breach and snare options.

I've read a lot in this thread but missed out on the fact that a level 70 writ gives too few status points, compared with the 69. A crafting toon of mine is still doing the level 69 writs: cheaper ingredients, more status points.

I'm glad to hear that the recipes in the lower teirs for armoring are being looked at. Since I have reached t8, and will soon be working on my epic, I have noticed that the volume 79 advanced books contain recipes for "imbues" for armor such as Plate, Devout, and Melodic, in which other teirs there are no imbues for. This would be awesome if those particular sets would have imbues for chest and legs like the Vanguard, and Chainmail sets.

It would also be nice if the Tailored Woven and Tranquil chest and legs could also be imbued !

The easiest way to fix the loam issue is
... to have scouts use rare metal for their spells
... to use rare loam in some more recipies, to compensate the loss in need due to above.

Here's a couple of ideas that could get all of the tradeskillers involved with one another again:
Garden Planters!
Crafter Classes involved:
Carpenter - crafted Garden Planter
Provisioner - crafts seeds for Bushes, Roots, and Trees
Woodworker - crafts magical dens
Alchemists - crafts magical dusts for rock garden formations
Tinkerer - crafts overclocked grow lights and automatic sprinklers and mulchers

Here's how it works:
Each of the crafters would recieve the recipes for these items as they would mannequins and AA mirrors, through faction special recipes. In order to save work and confusion, all but the Carpenter will have one recipe to make for crafting seeds. The carpenter will have several different recipes for the planter (basically differing in size and/or shape). Of course, seeds and planters will not be lore, so you could have as many as you could fit in your house.
What do I do with the seeds and the planter?
Just as you would with any house item, you place the planter somewhere in you house. However, when you right click on this item it gives you several options, with the most important being "plant seeds", "water garden" and "feed garden". In order to plant seeds, you must have a "seed" item in you inventory. The planter will hold up to three "seed" items at a time, and duplicates are allowed (i.e. you can plant three rock garden seeds, or one each of the wood, root, and rock). Each seed item lasts for 24 hrs before it expires.
After the seeds have been planted, you must now tend your garden. To do this, you must use NPC dropped fertilizers and waters. Depending on what Tier ferts and waters you use, will determine what nodes you get to pop (i.e. use tier 3 ferts and waters, and tier 3 nodes pop). Mixing different tiered ferts and waters will yield a smaller batch of the higher tier of the two items. One water and fert will yield one spawn of nodes (6-8 nodes at a time). These nodes will share the same harvesting tables as 'wild nodes', and player harvesting rules will apply.
The tinkered items are designed to do exactly what they sound like they do. The grow lights will speed up spawn timers by a set %, automatic spriinkler acts like a mini bank for up to 6 waters, and will dispense one to the planter every 4 hours automatically, and the mulcher does the same for ferts.

Wadda think?

khanthemighty wrote:

Very interesting idea. I do like the idea of the garden planters that everyone participates in making however I'm not so sure about the tending aspect. There are a lot of people who don't log in every day, or sometimes even every week and I'm not sure how that would work with having to tend the gardens.

I do like the idea of getting more of the tradeskills involved in making items for the homes!

Allow me to add something...
The seed recipes would last 24hrs...or 10 feeding cycles. The 24hr time limit actually helps those that don't use characters often, seeing as though timers don't continue to run when the player logs off (like food, invis, solstice buff, etc).

THANK YOU DOMINO I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to Domino for all the love and attention she's given us tradeskillers. I am sure that the original TS designers were a bunch of bachelors who lived in dirty houses decorated in early Salvation Army and wore only 80's rock band T-shirts and jeans. Totally agree Love the seed and planter ideas, but not the tending, dont make things complicated...this is a game to have fun, not to have to "work" Bruji

Personally, I believe what is missing from crafting is a sense of accomplishment. Back when we had the subcomponents we had long, borring, monotonous crafting sessions for the subcomponents. Except when you finally got all the pieces you needed made and put them all together you had a real sense of accomplishment. And when you got an order from omeone they knew the effort it took to make that item and paid you well for it. Now there is no real effort in making the item. There are at most 2 steps and you can have the itme crafted within 2 minutes. Trust me, the players know this and pay accordingly for it too with lower tips.
Also back with the old system when you capped out at 50 it was a real accomplishment too, today when you hit 80 most people say " Yeah great now go do something real like adventure to 80"
I know it's not going to be brought back but I do wish it would. I miss the old crafting system.
Now on the other hand.....the items we can now craft are WAAAAY better than they used to be

LordDragone wrote:

OMG, no. When I was doing those old fashioned subcombines I often thought of my mother, working on the assembly line, capping bottles of medicine. I'd think, if she could see me now, doing by choice the same type horrid work she had to do to support us, she'd turn over in her grave. Please, let my mother rest in peace. No subcombines.
I didn't get any sense of accomplishment from that work. By the time I'd make all the subcombines I needed in order to make the first time recipes for the level, I was just totally exhausted. Not fun at all. I stuck with it so I could make my own spells. I was one happy camper when the system was changed.

Was thinking, how about an npc who (for a fee of course) would exchange 1 rare for a rare of your choice in the same tier and node? Would apply to mining nodes since all other nodes already drop only 1 type of rare.
Another idea is rare mining drops from other nodes (like they did with roots on shrubberies). Maybe rare loams from fishing nodes (those fish eat the darnest things ).

Transen wrote:

It's been suggested before that several npc's could be added to each tier, they would be willing to exchange 1 of a fixed type of rare for any 2 rares of the same tier.

For example a lumberjack in the middle of Antonica who would exchange any two T2 rares for a T2 wood rare. A miner in Zek who would offer an appropriate tier rare ore for any two rares of the same tier etc etc. The thing being that (RP Wise) the npc has an abundance of rares because of who they are, and are willing to trade to 'obtain' other rares.

With such a system, rare prices should stabilise to the point that no rare would be more than twice the cost of another rare in the same tier.

Having to find the right npc for the rare you want of the tier you want will ensure that people don't run around making en-masse rare conversions.

If a sufficient number of rares are removed from the game due to this mechanic, it may be possible to increase the drop-rate of rares slightly.


However I imagine such a system would basically act as a 'break' on any one rare becoming too expensive in comparison with others of the same tier.

Buy 2 incarnadine and trade them for a silicate loam for 50 gold, instead of 4 plat! Oooo, count me in!
Just put the npc's in Teren's or at the RoK docks, please. Don't make us go to Fens or Kunsar!

I love all the changes that you have done Domino. Great job.

Mikkahl wrote:

Incarnadine were only 16g on Splitpaw last week. Something is sure out of kilter there! And yes, an excellent exchange!

Apsenniel@Splitpaw wrote:

This is an interesting idea, but the consequences need to be thought through. It will not reduce the price of silicate loam to 32 gold. It will increase the price of incarnadine to 2 plat!
Moreover, some people will get wind that it is going to happen, buy up all the incarnadine relatively cheaply and make a lot of plat out of it! I don't think SOE want to do anyting to help plat farmers, regretably this idea would.
In addition in Kunark the chain armour rewards are too good. There is no good reason for scouts or shamen to buy master crafted armour, the quest rewards are quite good enough for most purposes, so over half the people who require metal armour are not interested in buying product that consumes incarnadine. In addition the consumers need 3 times as much silicate loam ( for spell scrolls - 27 slots approx) as they do for incarnadine ( for armor and weapons - 9 slots)
On the positive side this should get the bushes harvested!

Sirenta wrote:

That would most likely "fix" this at T8 and T7 on servers who have loads of raiding guilds and few use of MCed armour. However, on other tiers, this would be the worse thing to do! For example, on Lucan D'Lere right now, ebon cluster goes for 1p90g (yeah you read right), while fused loam is only 50g. Actually, it's only at T8 that the loam gets more expensive than the ore (4p85 vs 22g - mage and priest spell rares being at 2p and 90g respectively).
Note : Xegonite goes here for 1p40, spongy loam for only 40g...

So to "fix" the loam/ore in T8, you would ruin even more the rest of the game (because for T1-T7, prices on ore clusters are way off the charts at the moment here, and most likely on most other servers).

Nifnif@Lucan DLere wrote:

The rare with the less use are wood and pelt. Why not use thelm instead of loam for scouts ? (or fighters )