Tradeskilling made ...fun???

[Slyy Daugg]

Well, today I loggged on and hit lvl 12, and decided to take a break from all the slaughter and check out tradeskilling.

Wow.

At first I was totally lost. I really had no idea where to even begin. But with a little help from EQ Traders, I found out where to start in my home town, and dug right in, basically throwing a good deal of my *wealth* into just getting the hang of things.

But holy wow, when I got the hang of it all, I was blown away. I went at it for hours on end, and smiling the whole time. Tradeskilling has been made absolutely engrossing, and the possibilities to enrich it further seem so intriguing.

The whole Artisan leveling system was a freaking brilliant move by Sony. All I wanted to do is get to the next level to find out what I could make next. The reicepe system is simply the best there's ever been.

The fact that every ingrediant you craft in the process of completing the final product -- as well as the final product itself -- has four possible quality levels, and the fact that your attentiveness to the process plays a large factor in the final outcome of said quality levels, makes the whole thing range from interesting, to downright intense.

For instance, When I hit lvl 8 as an Artisan, I decided I really needed some good 6-slot backpacks, and went to work on them. Up till then, my lack of inventory space had been the bane of my existance out in the field, and in the workshop. I wanted more space, and I wanted it bad. So I got to work on my backpacks. What I discovered during the crafting process was that if I didn't pay close attention and use all the counters to the problems that cropped up, I would end up crafting ingredients that were of lower quality than they coould have been. At first, I was like, "meh, big deal - a backpack is a backpack." What I soon discovered, however, is that using higher quality ingrediants resulted in a greater chance of producing a backpack with more slots. After I realized what was going on, and as my funds began to dwindle, I started paying really close attention to every step in the process. Every time I got a pristine ingrediant, I was like, "yes!"

After just this one session, and from reading what I have at EQ Traders about Societies and what-not, I'm convinced EQ2 has done something seriously revolutionary with the whole tradeskilling thing, and look forward to how it will evolve. Major props to the devs for all the hard work they obviously put into this incredible tradeskill monster.

SD

[Koru]

The system is very confusing at first. The tutorial for tradeskills is actually rather pathetic compared to the tutorial for other parts of the game since it doesn't explain the counters. But the skills are very useful. Making better packs makes a huge difference to packrats like me. Despite the more twitch oriented aspects of it I'm starting to like this system

[coyoteblack]

I love the system jut the harvesting in newber areas is a pain. I cant for the life of me get any thing over 26 except foraging. most of the stuff you buy is shaped not pristine. and in order to make he basic stuff you have to forage. getting rocks/trees to spawn is like pulling teth.

[Elorianne]

I am enjoying tradeskills more, this character was created after my first two, and in large part to take advantage of the artisan start you can get on IoR.

I got to lvl 6 as artisan on IoR, but haven't quite figured out the counters. If I cast a counter in advance, I still messages that say heat loss or flavor loss or whatever, even when the proper counter had supposedly been cast. Yet if you wait to cast the counter till the event occurs, isnt it too late? Should counters be cast in advance, and if so, can you stack them?

I have tried recasting a counter after the event it was supposed to counter occurred, but that hasn't seemed to do any good either.

Elorianne Wood Elf
9 scout
6 artisan

[Koru]

You need to hit the counter as it appears. It doesn't counter if you try to hit it before the malfunction appears. Best way to see it in action is to notice if your item takes a substantial hit, or if you take damage. The icons can provide buffs if used outside of countering, but I haven't figured out how good those are. Basically it's a 'match the symbol'. Up pops a blue symbol, hit the blue button to counter it while it's still up. If you delay too long the malfunction will go into effect. If you don't you may take damage and the item you're crafting takes some as well.

[Velvetrose]

I remade all my characters so that I could take advantage of the harvesting/fishing/mining resources found there to get your lvls where they need to be inorder to actually do them in Antonica.

I have also worked on my trade skills on the island. It is not intuitive tho. No where does it show you that you HAVE to buy/loot an Artisan book and scribe the contents inorder to get recipes, nor are the counters explained ...ANYWHERE in the tutorial. I, so far have made 4 slotted backpacks and some seasoned fish.

but it is fun, instead of just click...click...click as in EQ.

[Shotoif]

I made bunches of crap yesterday. The thing that gets me though is how are you suppose to remember which things you have scribed already. i.e. I scribed artisan's essential volume 7 and some armor only lvl 7 piece of paper. I have seen plenty of other crazy ones in the broker.

The tutorial and the manual are worthless most aspects of the game.

[Sinadial]

You can see which books you've already scribed by going to your Recipe page. (Don't have a forge or anything targetted). From there, hit the Edit button by the filter option. The last filter option in the edit page is to filter recipes by book. It'll list every book/scroll you have scribed already.

[Nubbin]

Tradeskilling has been made absolutely engrossing, and the possibilities to enrich it further seem so intriguing.


I am really enjoying the game, and I like the actual artisan classes, however I disagree with the engrossing part. Unless creation times decrease with skill, I'm going to go insane creating trivial items. Also, playing "Whack A Mole" by hitting the correct countermeasure spell over and over isn't my idea of fun, especially when you consider all the sub-components that many items require. To me, the Whack A Mole is nothing but a way to keep people from macroing tradeskills. Not that I don't disagree with that, but last night, not counting the time spent collecting resources, it took me 4 hours just to create 20 Elm Storage boxes.


The fact that every ingrediant you craft in the process of completing the final product -- as well as the final product itself -- has four possible quality levels, and the fact that your attentiveness to the process plays a large factor in the final outcome of said quality levels, makes the whole thing range from interesting, to downright intense.

What I soon discovered, however, is that using higher quality ingrediants resulted in a greater chance of producing a backpack with more slots. After I realized what was going on, and as my funds began to dwindle, I started paying really close attention to every step in the process. Every time I got a pristine ingrediant, I was like, "yes!"

That not entirely true. Only the quality of the first item has an effect on the final overall quality. There is a thread or two on EQTraders about this.

signed,

Nubs