Tradeskill enhancement request: tradeskills are hard work.

[Meadow123]

Currently, there exists a bit of a situation with health and power management while tradeskilling. (1) Health rarely goes down. (2) Power goes down far to fast when using the exchange power for progress or durability arts. At one time (1) was not exclusively the case, there existed the ye old forge of death. Those days are long ago. The ye old forge of death made things somewhat interesting. A situation similar to (2) used to exist with spells. At one time, higher grade spells cost more power to cast, in addition to providing more damage. Now, all spell grades cost the same power to cast. Increasing a spell’s power cost, in some ways, makes that spell a downgrade. The current power cost for tradeskill arts also greatly handicaps high level adventurers. Adventure level 3, adventures with the least power, make the best tradeskillers. Suggestion: Part #1: the effect of hard work While crafting, have both power and health decrease continuously at exactly the rate of regeneration that player made drink and food provide. If using player made food and drink, then you could craft continuously, ignoring reaction art counters. If not using player made food and drink, then you should be able to work yourself to death! The particular rate of power and health loss should track the best food and drink the adventurer can consume at a particular level. This change should help create a market for provisioner goods. Part #2: extra thought, extra power While crafting, have the power cost of the exchange power for either durability or progress buff, assuming one is cast every round, be exactly a match for the power regeneration provided by woodworker made power regeneration totems of the corresponding adventure level. If this situation were the case, then there would exist no adventure level power consumption penalty. As things stand today, the highest level exchange power for durability or progress buffs are unusable; they consume so much power it is not possible to use them continuously; therefore, they are not upgrades at all. One must still use the lowest level of these reaction arts to not run out of power. This change should help create a market for woodworker goods. Part #3: it hurts when things go wrong With a recent change, successful counters guarantee a success round. Enhance this change to use the following three possibilities: (1) Correct counter: success round, no extra health or power lost (no gains either) (2) No counter: no success/failure bias, but an extra 1/8 health and power lost (3) Incorrect counter: failure round, an extra 1/4 health and power lost. Situation (1) is what exists now. Situation (2) is similar to what exists now, but does require that you pay attention or die. Remember, this situation occurs with lag, so the costs should not be that great. Situation (3) would force one to be alert during crafting. This health loss is similar to a three strikes you are out rule, except having a 1/4 health loss would provide some tolerance for the health lost in Part #1, and for rounding errors. One must pause between crafting items to regain the health lost to situations (2) and (3). (Hmm… has anyone ever had tradeskill experience debt with the current system?) Other miscellaneous thoughts: (a) changing the game so one can not use food and drink above one’s adventure level would create a market for the lower level food and drink and perhaps help with the bush situation at lower levels. Currently, the four level 70 (well 69 really) provisioner recipes are all that are needed. (b) these changes may also make life miserable for crafting bots (c) it would be nice if the descriptions of the tradeskill reaction arts listed _all_ of the reaction arts side effects. We are told there are some hidden effects. (d) it would be nice if the game’s log file logged tradeskill information with the same thoroughness as adventure information is logged. -- Meadow123

[Deson]

<cite>Meadow123 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Currently, there exists a bit of a situation with health and power management while tradeskilling. (1) Health rarely goes down. (2) Power goes down far to fast when using the exchange power for progress or durability arts. At one time (1) was not exclusively the case, there existed the ye old forge of death. Those days are long ago. The ye old forge of death made things somewhat interesting. A situation similar to (2) used to exist with spells. At one time, higher grade spells cost more power to cast, in addition to providing more damage. Now, all spell grades cost the same power to cast. Increasing a spell’s power cost, in some ways, makes that spell a downgrade. The current power cost for tradeskill arts also greatly handicaps high level adventurers. Adventure level 3, adventures with the least power, make the best tradeskillers. Suggestion: Part #1: the effect of hard work While crafting, have both power and health decrease continuously at exactly the rate of regeneration that player made drink and food provide. If using player made food and drink, then you could craft continuously, ignoring reaction art counters. If not using player made food and drink, then you should be able to work yourself to death! The particular rate of power and health loss should track the best food and drink the adventurer can consume at a particular level. This change should help create a market for provisioner goods. Part #2: extra thought, extra power While crafting, have the power cost of the exchange power for either durability or progress buff, assuming one is cast every round, be exactly a match for the power regeneration provided by woodworker made power regeneration totems of the corresponding adventure level. If this situation were the case, then there would exist no adventure level power consumption penalty. As things stand today, the highest level exchange power for durability or progress buffs are unusable; they consume so much power it is not possible to use them continuously; therefore, they are not upgrades at all. One must still use the lowest level of these reaction arts to not run out of power. This change should help create a market for woodworker goods. Part #3: it hurts when things go wrong With a recent change, successful counters guarantee a success round. Enhance this change to use the following three possibilities: (1) Correct counter: success round, no extra health or power lost (no gains either) (2) No counter: no success/failure bias, but an extra 1/8 health and power lost (3) Incorrect counter: failure round, an extra 1/4 health and power lost. Situation (1) is what exists now. Situation (2) is similar to what exists now, but does require that you pay attention or die. Remember, this situation occurs with lag, so the costs should not be that great. Situation (3) would force one to be alert during crafting. This health loss is similar to a three strikes you are out rule, except having a 1/4 health loss would provide some tolerance for the health lost in Part #1, and for rounding errors. One must pause between crafting items to regain the health lost to situations (2) and (3). (Hmm… has anyone ever had tradeskill experience debt with the current system?) Other miscellaneous thoughts: (a) changing the game so one can not use food and drink above one’s adventure level would create a market for the lower level food and drink and perhaps help with the bush situation at lower levels. Currently, the four level 70 (well 69 really) provisioner recipes are all that are needed. (b) these changes may also make life miserable for crafting bots (c) it would be nice if the descriptions of the tradeskill reaction arts listed _all_ of the reaction arts side effects. We are told there are some hidden effects. (d) it would be nice if the game’s log file logged tradeskill information with the same thoroughness as adventure information is logged. -- Meadow123 </blockquote>The general idea of making crafting more involved and challenging is certainly something I can agree with. Doing it for the propose of making a market at this stage in the game though is something else entirely. Making things annoying for the sake of bot killing is something that shouldn't even be mentioned in my view.  If they do change things, the best thing they can do is add in an entirely different health/power pool for crafters. That's the only way it can actually be balanced and it comes with the added bonus of allow more diverse crafting rewards and content. The current system has too many areas where adventure class and race affect the process in ways that force them to use static, % based events. Another weakness here is that you don't account for the non-power buffs. The changes you propose would change little and if anything, make people just not do them. For food, Maybe your server economy is different but, while food is usable at all levels, it certainly isn't cost effective to use those highest levels. I harvest and make my own and I use as close to adventure level as practical as it's significantly cheaper to do so. As a side note, that guaranteed success change was over a year ago...summer of 2005.