I posted about this on another thread but since then a fellow homeshow player said this in chat: "I think the developers need to understand what exacly 'crafting' means". And I couldn't agree more. These aren't quests for crafters.
what are quests for crafters ? what as a crafter do you want in a crafting quest ? what is a good exemple of craftig quest ? btw, can u increase factions (pakia, yurzu ... ) with TS quests ?
I was a fan of the previous crafting instances- each had a story (arm an army, build a ship, build a robot) and had some animation for the ending, each could be done with a group if desired, the rewards were honest to gosh crafting rewards (rolling pin anyone?) and it was pure unadulterated crafting. Yes, if you wandered to the wrong spot you could get aggroed- but it wasn't a matter of dodging anything, just sticking to the crafting area.
Halgrid shows up after the third part is completed. You can get the harvest missions from her. She doesn't offer the daily instance mission until you complete the full quest line.
I'm glad you asked. Sincerely all the other timelines here. I have never before had a tradeskill questline in EQII that I didn't like.
See, to an adventurer trying, dying, learning, succeeding is the idea of a good questline. I think this line can be fun for somebody that likes learning a zone well enough they can run around avoiding aggro as needed - but then crafters are saying that isn't them. I liked the line, particularly harvesting the ashs in flames, the final battle with Innoruuk, and learning Hate well enough I know where everything is and the way everything roams. I consider myself an adventurer primarily though. Do other crafters agree with Mathafern? Would it have been better to do like the old group missions used to do - let multiple crafters in, and task them with doing about 100 combines that culminates in an animation at the end of something you crafted doing something? No risk of aggro, only deaths being not countering a tradeskill event on time?
I don't like crafting, don't get any of it on me , please. However, those who do like it, I encourage and support them. This game should be big enough for all to play how they have fun.
I do both. Dying and learning strats for avoiding dying are adventuring activities. Crafters don't expect to face death unless it is a 'special' combine that has dangerous counters. Yes, there are combines where a single missed counter = death. As I've commented before, the devs clearly put much time and effort into the new timeline and it is well done. But it is an adventuring timeline, made in a way that appeals to those who like to adventure. When I was testing it, I was getting extremely frustrated with it until I realized that. Once I adjusted how I thought of the line and approached it AS an adventure timeline, things went much more smoothly. The problem is that this is the ONLY 'tradeskill' content in the expansion.. and it was delivered 3 months after the expac came out. People who are primarily (or only) crafters are, justifiably I think, frustrated to get an adventure timeline with excessively long combines and 75%+ of the rewards (and even the rewards for most of the 'repeatable' TS quests later) be 100% adventue rewards aimed at top level adventurers. The change to make the familiar (the item that actually helps with tradeskilling activities) was made between when we crashed for the night/morning on Monday/Tuesday and when the GU went live on Tuesday. For some of the quests, the plat reward doesn't even cover fuel costs. Again, no issue to an adventurer (though still an annoyance), but it IS an issue for tradeskillers. There are no furniture rewards. The 'big' reward is no commission, no trade, so many non-crafters will be doing the line as well, since they want the reward. That means the crafters who do finish the line, can't even make items for the hard-core adventurers who dislike crafting.. because those people feel obligated to do the timelines so they can get that 'best in slot item'. So not only do the quest rewards fail to award the crafter with things the crafter finds useful, they fail to provide the crafter with things they can provide (craft for) non-crafters.
Ok, so what if - in theory - they were to take the crafting containers out, make this line an HQ with the end reward being the tome, then do some group crafting instances like the ones Mathafern mentioned - you go in, there's about 100 combines split up amongst everybody - no aggro mobs roaming around, like the quest 'Shipyard Services' or 'Clockwork Rescue' or (what was my favorite amongst the group ones back in the day) 'Emergency Portal Repairs'. And importantly - the final reward is a recipe that is useful to adventurers BUT can be commissioned or even tradeable so that adventurers don't feel compelled to HAVE to do it, and crafters have a group of people that will actually ask them to make something for them. Would that make everybody here happy?
Well the new PQ is a crafting quest for adventurers. I predict it will waste away from disuse as soon as the word gets around.
*shrug* Nothing will make everybody happy. I really liked the ToT TS line and the KA line. I'm not sure I liked the idea of the adventurer aimed cloak at the end because it 'forced' adventurers who want to be best at adventuring to do tradeskills, much like the way the tome is set up does now, but I liked the various rewards for TSers along the way and the purple adorn recipes were also nice. Some TSers disliked the ToT and KA lines. Much of it comes down to personal preference if you like a line or not.
The ToT tradeskill questline is, to me, one of the best stories of all the tradeskill quest lines, but what the problem boils down to is: rewards are not tradeskill rewards. People would put up with the aggro for real tradeskill rewards, though in a tradeskill line there shouldn't be any aggro. All they had to do was look at any reward from past tradeskill questlines that Domino made and copy it with current era tradeskill-related stats. A cloak, a title, some furniture... really, tradeskillers are easy to please and it seems the devs went out of their way to kick dirt in our faces.
The sole reason for me to do crafting and level up was because Epic 2.0 required it. I have never liked the crafting in this game because it is very tedious and unintuitive and generally I just don't like crafting. I was power levelled to level 100 TS so i have now idea how TS quest lines were in the past so this TS line was/is my only experience of a crafting timeline. Some aspects of story were ok to read but I just did not understand the rewards. One of the runes that reduce 10% cast time can already be purchased with tokens and the tome upgrade was simply a boost to resolve and base stats which, in my opinion, could easily been put in the adventure signature line as it is nothing new. 3 additional months needed to make it go live with this many bugs on a quest line that can be finished in one sitting is alarming in my view. I suppose some players will like it but others won't. I will not say it is bad but can't help feel that for a subscription based game, the content is very thin. I wanted to see more variety and a longer quest with meaningful rewards. Longer combine time should not make up for the lack of content.
yeah, I got my SK to 100 crafting but I was so burned out on it I didn't even bother with TS quests lines. Just logged on, every couple of days, turned on music I liked and did a level or 2 of writs. (not the timed ones, either, so I could walk away if RL called). Took me a long time but I eventually did it.
I loved those instances and still run them occasionally. I have said many times that in my opinion, we have enough systems already in place that could be updated or added to with minimal effort, that give rewards for tradeskillers, that would be beneficial to crafters whether it be furniture, gear with tradeskill/harvesting boosts etc. Revitalize what we have, I do not know many tradeskillers that would complain if those instances were updated to make them viable with the current levels, if recipes were added to all 3 of the apprentices, if we had a viable way to get any coins (Mysterious Blue Coins) that are used for purchasing recipes, etc. The tradeskill and decorating communities are quite easy to please. Throw us a bunch of new recipes for each TS profession, give us a new instance or two, give us something to MAKE that the other communites like adventurers and raiders want and can only get from us, that way we can make some coin to purchase things from them. You will rarely if ever find anybody on the adventure/raider side of the game that is willing to trade whatever item they have that the crafter wants/needs for something the crafter can make that the adventurer/raider wants/needs. Hiding plunderable house decorations inside higher level adventure content irks the decorators, it does not make them want to run out and level their adventure skills so they can go in and hopefully loot whatever deco is in an instance, not quite as bad now since the level cap increase, but if they need a group to help get to the plunderable item desired, chances are, its going to be a need or greed roll and they better hope RNG loves them at that moment in time. Putting pure tradeskill recipes as drops inside higher level adventure content irks the tradeskillers, for the same reasons that hiding plunderable house decorations inside higher level content irks the decorators, so there is no point in renumerating the above paragraph. I still say they need to give us a person (KAITHEEL) hint, hint, somebody that gets us, and do focus groups like Gninja did with the raiders. That way the crafters/harvesters/decorators have someone that they are in direct communication with, someone that can hear what we would like to see, and what we consider fun. Then during the planning meetings for future content these communities have a representative voice. It doesn't mean that we will get what we want, but at least there is someone there that can put our voices into the mix. I fully understand that Kaitheel loves events and holidays and does not want to give that up, but there are a couple months where there are no events or holidays. During this downtown is when these focus groups could be held so that Kaitheel can be our voice without giving up events and holidays. We are pretty laid back and would accept a bone or three thrown in our direction more than just during an expansion but we also do not require as much attention. If we know that someone is listening to us, we are typically pretty well behaved. These are just my thoughts and they don't count for much, but they do represent similar thoughts from people I have spoken to in Homeshow, tradeskill, and RP channels. I am by no means speaking for any of these communities as I have not been asked to be their player voice and I do not believe in dictatorships although I did become Empress of the Universe when my mum died *grins*. Regards Cyrrena
My main thoughts on doing this line. I died more times doing the tradeskill sig. line that I did doing the adventure sig. line. This is ridiculous. I'm glad I leveled all my crafters to 110 before the introduction of this, I will not do it on more than one toon. Maybe you should add a wand of forgiveness to the rewards? The rewards are sub standard, the quest line was tedious and infuriating.
As an adventurer, I really enjoyed the tradeskill timeline. Does seem like most the complaints would be solved by simply adding a couple of additional rewards to the questline aimed at crafting. The harvest bag idea is really cool, imo.
For myself, I like to adventure and to do TS. I have only done the first zone for the new TS sig line, but I did enjoy it, though I found it frustrating that as an adventurer who has taken the time to level up my character's level and ascension, could not defend herself against the mobs when she gained agro. I can understand being one-shot killed by a mob if your character is not leveled up, but one should be able to defend themselves against mobs if they have taken the time to level up.
I guess I'm going to have to do the same, I haven't been this mad about our game since I started playing.
Nothing I have read about it so far has managed to convince me to cough up the money to buy the expansion.
