Tinkering Still Not Worth the Effort

[Fing]

<p>Even with halving the mats, tinkering requires too much effort.  </p><p>Just to get to level 1 in tinkering, 5 skill, it would take 40 loams which is about one hours worth of work gathering, if you're lucky.</p><p>And then you look at the tinkering items.  The ones I was most interested in are the feign death and stealth items mostly cause I solo.  They are charged!</p><p>Sorry, I'll pass.</p>

[Jesdyr]

tradeskills arent for you then. Also it takes me about 10 min at most to get 40 T1 loams. If you are nto willing to put any effort into getting materials, maybe you should just buy them off the broker. Not everything should be easy. Maybe you would be happy to just be able to do something like " /set_tinkering 350 " but what the hell would the point be in that?

[sah]

If you think tinkering requires too much effort, then try transmuting... <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Fing]

<cite>JesDer wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not everything should be easy. Maybe you would be happy to just be able to do something like " /set_tinkering 350 " but what the hell would the point be in that? </blockquote><p> If you want to waste your time, knock yourself out.</p><p>Leveling tinkering is a useless time sink.</p>

[kenm]

Um, tinkering was worth the effort before SOE went and nerfed it to require half the loams. Manastone clicky, unlimited use every 2 second memwipe tool, mender bot, 99% FD. Besides, what the heck else do you blow plat on if not thousands of loam?

[Talz]

<cite>Fingis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>JesDer wrote:</cite><blockquote>Not everything should be easy. Maybe you would be happy to just be able to do something like " /set_tinkering 350 " but what the hell would the point be in that? </blockquote><p> If you want to waste your time, knock yourself out.</p><p>Leveling tinkering is a useless time sink.</p></blockquote>If feign and stealth are the best things and everything else isn't worth the effort then I believe it is fair to say that you're grossly misinformed about what it has to offer.

[Calthine]

Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote> Besides, what the heck else do you blow plat on if not thousands of loam? </blockquote> Thousands of transmutables!!!

[A-Dent42]

<cite>Fingis wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Even with halving the mats, tinkering requires too much effort.  </p><p>Just to get to level 1 in tinkering, 5 skill, it would take 40 loams which is about one hours worth of work gathering, if you're lucky.</p><p>And then you look at the tinkering items.  The ones I was most interested in are the feign death and stealth items mostly cause I solo.  They are charged!</p><p>Sorry, I'll pass.</p></blockquote> Unfortunately I have to agree the process of trade skilling is in itself tedious and uninteresting but now they have added frustration to the mix as well.  I have no doubt the SOE fan club will crawl out of the woodwork to support them over this but I am still firmly convinced they could replace the entire crafting system with a modified gigglegibbler lotto machine and it would be an improvement (get 2 number and you get a skill gain get 3 numbers and you get a skill gain and loam back).

[Jesdyr]

Obelix@Nektulos wrote: <blockquote>the process of trade skilling is in itself tedious and uninteresting but now they have added frustration to the mix as well.  </blockquote> Killing the same mobs over and over is tedious and uninteresting. They should just let me lotto for adventure skill gains. Pushing buttons to kill a mob is not really all that different than pushing buttons to make an item. Visually there is a big difference, but when it comes down to it, there is really little difference. If tradeskills are not for you, DON'T DO THEM. I hate playing Melee classes and therefore I dont play them (much). I dont sit here complaing how tanking is boring and SOE should make it more "worthwhile" for ME. Maybe the difference is I have no interest in the "rewards" of being a high level melee class and therefor have no reason to complain about it. Really the only reason to complain about tradeskills is if you want to play a crafter. Playing a crafter is basicly standing around pushing buttons.

[A-Dent42]

<cite>JesDer wrote:</cite><blockquote>Obelix@Nektulos wrote: <blockquote>the process of trade skilling is in itself tedious and uninteresting but now they have added frustration to the mix as well.  </blockquote> Killing the same mobs over and over is tedious and uninteresting. They should just let me lotto for adventure skill gains. Pushing buttons to kill a mob is not really all that different than pushing buttons to make an item. Visually there is a big difference, but when it comes down to it, there is really little difference. If tradeskills are not for you, DON'T DO THEM. I hate playing Melee classes and therefore I dont play them (much). I dont sit here complaing how tanking is boring and SOE should make it more "worthwhile" for ME. Maybe the difference is I have no interest in the "rewards" of being a high level melee class and therefor have no reason to complain about it. Really the only reason to complain about tradeskills is if you want to play a crafter. Playing a crafter is basicly standing around pushing buttons. </blockquote> So it is your opinion that pushing the same three buttons over and over with essentially random effects is a good system? In my time online I have played (at the top end of crafting) UO, EQ, DAoC, SWG, WoW and EQ2 and of all the crafting systems EQ2's rates as the most frustrating and I can narrow it down to over riding issue, the need to button mash constantly I can live with the crappy harvesting systems and I can live with the god awful RNG but to have both in the one game and then put button mashing on top of it is a feat I seriously doubt any other game could or would ever want to match. Incidentally I agree killing the same mob over and over is just as boring and could by improved a lot by expanding the loot table and randomising things a little but this isn't the forum to discuss that.

[Talz]

Obelix@Nektulos wrote: <blockquote><cite>JesDer wrote:</cite><blockquote>Obelix@Nektulos wrote: <blockquote>the process of trade skilling is in itself tedious and uninteresting but now they have added frustration to the mix as well.  </blockquote> Killing the same mobs over and over is tedious and uninteresting. They should just let me lotto for adventure skill gains. Pushing buttons to kill a mob is not really all that different than pushing buttons to make an item. Visually there is a big difference, but when it comes down to it, there is really little difference. If tradeskills are not for you, DON'T DO THEM. I hate playing Melee classes and therefore I dont play them (much). I dont sit here complaing how tanking is boring and SOE should make it more "worthwhile" for ME. Maybe the difference is I have no interest in the "rewards" of being a high level melee class and therefor have no reason to complain about it. Really the only reason to complain about tradeskills is if you want to play a crafter. Playing a crafter is basicly standing around pushing buttons. </blockquote> So it is your opinion that pushing the same three buttons over and over with essentially random effects is a good system? In my time online I have played (at the top end of crafting) UO, EQ, DAoC, SWG, WoW and EQ2 and of all the crafting systems EQ2's rates as the most frustrating and I can narrow it down to over riding issue, the need to button mash constantly I can live with the crappy harvesting systems and I can live with the god awful RNG but to have both in the one game and then put button mashing on top of it is a feat I seriously doubt any other game could or would ever want to match. Incidentally I agree killing the same mob over and over is just as boring and could by improved a lot by expanding the loot table and randomising things a little but this isn't the forum to discuss that. </blockquote>I would rate EQ1 as the worst tradeskill system in any MMO I have ever played.  The PoP revamp helped but for years it was awful.

[A-Dent42]

<cite>Talzar wrote:</cite><blockquote> I would rate EQ1 as the worst tradeskill system in any MMO I have ever played.  The PoP revamp helped but for years it was awful. </blockquote>Yeah I have to admit it wasn't a good system but it was simple straight forward and didn't require a great deal of button mashing, I also thought PoP was a good update however I still believe SWG had the best crafting system of any game I have ever played although a few less stats on raw materials and a simpler crafting process (possibly a better layout on the interface) would have been nice.

[Maroger]

Obelix@Nektulos wrote: <blockquote><cite>Fingis wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Even with halving the mats, tinkering requires too much effort.  </p><p>Just to get to level 1 in tinkering, 5 skill, it would take 40 loams which is about one hours worth of work gathering, if you're lucky.</p><p>And then you look at the tinkering items.  The ones I was most interested in are the feign death and stealth items mostly cause I solo.  They are charged!</p><p>Sorry, I'll pass.</p></blockquote> Unfortunately I have to agree the process of trade skilling is in itself tedious and uninteresting but now they have added frustration to the mix as well.  I have no doubt the SOE fan club will crawl out of the woodwork to support them over this but I am still firmly convinced they could replace the entire crafting system with a modified gigglegibbler lotto machine and it would be an improvement (get 2 number and you get a skill gain get 3 numbers and you get a skill gain and loam back). </blockquote><p>I must say I am beginning to agree with you. Ever since once-step combines and putting recipes etc as Mob drops -- tradeskills have gone down hill on skis. They have become nothing but a carpal-tunnel syndrome creator since the output is worthless. </p><p>One advantage the EQ1 system had is you didn't have to continuall mash buttons or click on an art to get the RNG results. At this point Tradeskills should seriously considering using the same method as EQ1. The arts are meaningless the output is junk -- why mash so many buttons when we can really have one step by using the EQ1 method. It won't really change the quality of out output but at least it will make it less tedious. </p>

[Rijacki]

Advanced recipes have always been available as mob drops, from the very first day of release.  The only other ways to get non-essential recipes have been drops or adventure quest rewards.  It's not new. And... if you are -constantly- mashing buttons while tradeskilling and/or -only- using 3 buttons, you ain't doing it right and no wonder you find it boring or whatever.  Just as with combat, there are combinations of skills that work against certain effects and there are also times you need to just "auto-attack", not push any buttons for a while, to note the progress and then re-act to it.

[kenm]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>And... if you are -constantly- mashing buttons while tradeskilling and/or -only- using 3 buttons, you ain't doing it right and no wonder you find it boring or whatever.  Just as with combat, there are combinations of skills that work against certain effects and there are also times you need to just "auto-attack", not push any buttons for a while, to note the progress and then re-act to it. </blockquote> Why in the world would you need to not use any buttons for any amount of time?  I never fail pristine when I craft, unless I want to for a discovery or some such, and 95% of the time I'm just spamming my three progress buttons every tick, the other 5% being when I get 2-3 critical failures in a row and have to use the durability ones.  And by simply mashing buttons I can generally finish rush orders with 3-5 minutes left over depending on the RNG.  The entirety of crafting is easy to the point where a monkey with braindamage can throw out pristines at a 100% success rate. It's not difficult, it's not fun, and it hasn't been the least bit requiring of thought ever since interdependency and subcombines were removed. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[A-Dent42]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Advanced recipes have always been available as mob drops, from the very first day of release.  The only other ways to get non-essential recipes have been drops or adventure quest rewards.  It's not new. And... if you are -constantly- mashing buttons while tradeskilling and/or -only- using 3 buttons, you ain't doing it right and no wonder you find it boring or whatever.  Just as with combat, there are combinations of skills that work against certain effects and there are also times you need to just "auto-attack", not push any buttons for a while, to note the progress and then re-act to it. </blockquote> I think you are somehow placing functional over good. There is no doubt that the current crafting system is functional and yes it is relatively easy to produce pristine products 99.999% of the time but it is far from being a good system and it is by no means fun. To my way of thinking and I am sure people will disagree but a fun, well thought out system would allow me to craft while interacting with others ie having the time to respond to a tell from a customer it would have counters that actually did what they say they do and last but not least it would allow me to craft for longer than 15 mins before my wrists seized up. If I was to make any changes to the existing system I would remove the constant durability hits, increase the damage done from failing to counter a reaction thus ensuring people are watching the process and give counters spell abilities in that they can be resisted (ie a "failed to counter" message), essentially it would look exactly as it does now except you wouldnt see the durability bar decreasing unless you failed to counter a reaction. Obviously the harder the recipe the more reactions you would need to counter and the more chance of getting a "failed to counter" message but I think that adds a modicum of realism.  

[Rijacki]

Obelix@Nektulos wrote: <blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Advanced recipes have always been available as mob drops, from the very first day of release.  The only other ways to get non-essential recipes have been drops or adventure quest rewards.  It's not new. And... if you are -constantly- mashing buttons while tradeskilling and/or -only- using 3 buttons, you ain't doing it right and no wonder you find it boring or whatever.  Just as with combat, there are combinations of skills that work against certain effects and there are also times you need to just "auto-attack", not push any buttons for a while, to note the progress and then re-act to it. </blockquote> I think you are somehow placing functional over good. </blockquote>I think you're putting words in my mouth.  I didn't say anything about it being a "good" system or the best system or even the most involved tradeskill system.  I've played EQ1 and SWG before the CU and NGE, I've seen a simpiler system (EQ1) and a much more complex, player led system (SWG pre-CU/NGE, I don't know what they have now).  I only said if you're constantly mashing the buttons and only using 3 reactives, you ain't doing it right and then it would be -very- boring.

[Je]

Tradeskills in Everquest II are boring.  If you are hellbent on defending them in their current state you are either a masochist or you simply have not experienced anything better.  Please note that I am making a case against boredom, not easeness, they are two distinct things.  I am a new player to the game and find it to be a lot of fun.  In an attempt to make my own skills I tried to pick up Jewelcrafting and got it up to level 37.  At that point I gave up.  Crafting the same apprentice IV skills over and over and reselling them to the vendor (because honestly, no one buys apprentice IV) skills was not fun.  Hitting level 35 and getting 1% progress per combine is not fun, in particular when in that level there were only 5 total combines from which to gain pristine experience. Overall, the crafting system in EQII needs to be looked at.  It is possible to add challenge to the system without making it monotonous.  I would gladly take any system that makes attempting a combine 100% harder if it made every succesful combine yield noticable progress each level. J.

[Macross_JR]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Obelix@Nektulos wrote: <blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Advanced recipes have always been available as mob drops, from the very first day of release.  The only other ways to get non-essential recipes have been drops or adventure quest rewards.  It's not new. And... if you are -constantly- mashing buttons while tradeskilling and/or -only- using 3 buttons, you ain't doing it right and no wonder you find it boring or whatever.  Just as with combat, there are combinations of skills that work against certain effects and there are also times you need to just "auto-attack", not push any buttons for a while, to note the progress and then re-act to it. </blockquote> I think you are somehow placing functional over good. </blockquote>I think you're putting words in my mouth.  I didn't say anything about it being a "good" system or the best system or even the most involved tradeskill system.  I've played EQ1 and SWG before the CU and NGE, I've seen a simpiler system (EQ1) and a much more complex, player led system (SWG pre-CU/NGE, I don't know what they have now).  I only said if you're constantly mashing the buttons and only using 3 reactives, you ain't doing it right and then it would be -very- boring. </blockquote>Oh how I long for another SWG crafting system.  To this day, I would have to say it was the best system that was ever implemented in an MMO for crafting.  So many options with that crafting system, just as long as people wanted different color of composite armor it was ok. I hated seeing the same suit of armor all over the place. After a while in that game I had to just start wearing regular clothes when not fighting so I could look different. Sony, as much as I like EQ2, you messed up SWG so bad.  You had something good going and you totally blew it.  Please don't do the same with this game.

[Calthine]

Kenman@Najena wrote: <blockquote> It's not difficult, it's not fun, and it hasn't been the least bit requiring of thought ever since interdependency and subcombines were removed. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote> Well, I enjoy it and have fun.  If you don't, perhaps you should be adventuring instead.

[Amphibia]

I just leveled up a tinkererer, and I totally love some of those things. Crosstrainers, manastone, lifestone, feign death and that memwipe thingie are all great items. There are others as well, but those are the ones I use the most. It's not that bad to level up either, problem is getting all the loam and I can tell you right now that tier 1 is worst. If you get past that, it gets better.... If I were to complain about anything at all, it would be that they're only 5 charges... I burn through that quickly, and my poor little froggy is a weakling who cannot carry even 1 strongbox, so I have little space in my inventory to put these things when out adventuring... <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But still definatly worth it, in my opinion. Gives you a few extra tools weither you like soloing, group adventuring, raiding or PvP.

[Cathars]

<cite>Fingis wrote:</cite><blockquote>JesDer wrote: <p>Leveling tinkering is a useless time sink.</p></blockquote> Ultimately everything in a video game is.  Adventure levelling to 70 is too ... if you don't enjoy getting there.  Obviously you don't like tinkering so save yourself the anguish and don't do it.

[Maroger]

<cite>Fingis wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Even with halving the mats, tinkering requires too much effort.  </p><p>Just to get to level 1 in tinkering, 5 skill, it would take 40 loams which is about one hours worth of work gathering, if you're lucky.</p><p>And then you look at the tinkering items.  The ones I was most interested in are the feign death and stealth items mostly cause I solo.  They are charged!</p><p>Sorry, I'll pass.</p></blockquote><p>I love the new changes. I didn't find it required as much as effort as normal tradeskills. Usually you should be able to get a lot of rares when you harvest for loams. At least I do. Like you I solo and I use the Feign Death item quite a bit. Not sure what you mean by charged? The fact that it only has 5 on it -- so what just make more. </p><p>It is just too bad that must of the stuff you make is really only usable by the maker. </p>

[Maroger]

Githil@Permafrost wrote: <blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Obelix@Nektulos wrote: <blockquote><cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>Advanced recipes have always been available as mob drops, from the very first day of release.  The only other ways to get non-essential recipes have been drops or adventure quest rewards.  It's not new. And... if you are -constantly- mashing buttons while tradeskilling and/or -only- using 3 buttons, you ain't doing it right and no wonder you find it boring or whatever.  Just as with combat, there are combinations of skills that work against certain effects and there are also times you need to just "auto-attack", not push any buttons for a while, to note the progress and then re-act to it. </blockquote> I think you are somehow placing functional over good. </blockquote>I think you're putting words in my mouth.  I didn't say anything about it being a "good" system or the best system or even the most involved tradeskill system.  I've played EQ1 and SWG before the CU and NGE, I've seen a simpiler system (EQ1) and a much more complex, player led system (SWG pre-CU/NGE, I don't know what they have now).  I only said if you're constantly mashing the buttons and only using 3 reactives, you ain't doing it right and then it would be -very- boring. </blockquote>Oh how I long for another SWG crafting system.  To this day, I would have to say it was the best system that was ever implemented in an MMO for crafting.  So many options with that crafting system, just as long as people wanted different color of composite armor it was ok. I hated seeing the same suit of armor all over the place. After a while in that game I had to just start wearing regular clothes when not fighting so I could look different. Sony, as much as I like EQ2, you messed up SWG so bad.  You had something good going and you totally blew it.  Please don't do the same with this game. </blockquote>I hope our developers take a good hard look at crafting in Vanguard -- it is really very, very good ( SWG had already had its crafting nerfed when I tried it_And more importantly it makes useful objects. The Work Orders which is the prime way to skill up in VG are so much superior to the ones we have ---our look like they were designed by someone in first grade compared to Vanguard's. And yes Vanguard is "buggy" as hell and overall is not as good as EQ2 but they sure got crafting right and EQ2 surely did NOT.

[Jesdyr]

<cite>Catharsis wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Fingis wrote:</cite><blockquote>JesDer wrote: <p>Leveling tinkering is a useless time sink.</p></blockquote> Ultimately everything in a video game is.  Adventure levelling to 70 is too ... if you don't enjoy getting there.  Obviously you don't like tinkering so save yourself the anguish and don't do it.</blockquote> .... I didnt say that !  But yah .. that is right .. everything could be seen as a useless timesink. That was my point in my 2nd post here. If you do not get enjoyment from something it is seen as "grind". What you think is grinding others might actually enjoy. I think my fav crafting/harvesting system was Saga of Ryzom.  Harvesting was great and took skill (we even have groups complete with healers!). Sadly I dont remember much about the actual tradeskills but it was fairly simple to do. To bad the game was messed up so badly in it's first major updates.

[Randell44]

" In my time online I have played (at the top end of crafting) UO, EQ, DAoC, SWG, WoW and EQ2 and of all the crafting systems EQ2's rates as the most frustrating and I can narrow it down to over riding issue, the need to button mash constantly I can live with the crappy harvesting systems and I can live with the god awful RNG but to have both in the one game and then put button mashing on top of it is a feat I seriously doubt any other game could or would ever want to match." Awww you actually need to interact to craft, instead of clicking and watching a bar move.  Or reading while it moves. I like the system because it forces crafters to ACTIVELY craft unless they are working on greens and such.  I was talking with someone on AIM today while crafting too, so it's not like your FORCED to constantly push buttons.  Smart useage and it will take slightly longer but you don't need to worry about failing OR paying severely close attention to it.  More attention just speed things up.