Isle of Mara Crafting Tools Decreasing Primary Skill

[DeathRider69]

I had noticed before that when I had one of the Mara tools equipped (such as the Whittling Knife) that it seemed to make crafting sessions harder (more critical, major, and minor failures) than not using the tool.  But putting on a tinkered tool made the sessions go better on average. This morning I had dinged my woodworker and realized I was just using the tinkered 3% bonus so I went and got the whittling knife I had put in the bank.  I opened the player screen and tradeskills and saw that before I put the knife on I was at 321 or 325.  When I put the knife in the charm slot I went to 331 of 335.  As I understand it, this now means that at a crafting level of 64, the 63 arrow would should be calculated as a blue recipe as if it were 61 due to the added fletching skill. Well as I was grinding I started getting the message that my fletching skill increased to 317 of 320.  It did this again for 318 and 319.  So I took off the knife and the next update was 325/325 as it should be.  So I did multiple sets of arrows.  I started checking on this toon so I remember all charms and did a baseline set of crafting and noted the time to complete and failures.  I did this with the knife alone, 3% tinkered, and knife + 3% tinkered.  What I noted is that at least, my worst crafting was with the knife in the charm slot alone.  Best was with the 3% tinkered.  I have noted similar on my carpenter when I would forget to enable the tool. Anyone else noticing this trait?  I did a petition as was just told it was a display bug. 

[Calthine]

+ to crafting skills makes you craft as though you were that much higher -  5 points = 1 level's worth.  It does not, however, raise your real crafting skill, letting you scribe recipes early, nor does it change the con of recipes.  If your real skill is 319 and you're wearing +5 to your skill, your next skillup will be 320.  You will <i>craft </i>as though you had a skill of 324. The difference it makes happens while you are crafting; having that skill virtually higher (especially in relation to the skill of the recipe) causes fewer events and critical failures.

[Jrral]

He seems to be saying, though, that he's seeing <i>more</i> failures and events, not fewer, when equipping the Mara tools. Which is exactly the opposite of what should happen.

[DeathRider69]

Let me try to clarify then... At the starting point of observation, I had just level and my skill was 321/325 when I started checking.  I added the Whittling Knife and the displayed skill level was 331/335 in the player window under tradeskills for Fletching.  When I removed the knife it was 321/325.  When I had the knife in the charm and the player window said 331/335 I was getting the "you get better at fletching (317/320) in the message window but the player window had 332/335.  Now I have spent a lot of time crafting on 6 tradeskillers and each one that has the Mara tool always seems to be worse off having the tool enabled than not having it enabled. As you explained it does not effect "real world" levels and I fully understand that, but they way it was explained a LONG time back by Beghn was as you explained as well.  If I am a level 64 crafter and I am crafting a level 64 recipe, the game <i>should</i> adjust the failure modifiers as if I was crafting a level 62 recipe since the tool adds +10 to skill or 2 levels.  This is about the same effect I would expect for a 2% tinkered tool but those do not adjust the base skill just the modifier.  When I use those tools both player and message windows showed 325/325 when I hit the final skill up for this level with the whittling tool removed. So on the surface it seems that the player skills window has the update but something got coded wrong on the tool and it actually subtracts 5 from the current skill versus adding 10.   Thus crafting a level 64 recipe would like crafting a level 65 recipe and thus account for the additional failures.  The reason I asked the question is that I see this on various of my toons, based on crafting X of the same recipe under no-tools. mara tool, tinkering tool, mara + tinkering tool.  All of them seem to have some so I wanted to see if it is maybe just my account or if others were seeing the same problems.

[Jrral]

One question, DR: do you have any other boosts to your fletching skill? Some racial traits, for example, give a bump to crafting skills. One easy way to tell is to see if the skill's in green or white in your persona window. If any boosts to it are active, it'll be green. The skill-up messages, though, will show the unboosted skill numbers which'll be lower than the ones in the persona window. My alchemist has that: he's a kerra and took the racial trait for +5 to chemistry, so the max skill in the skill-up messages is always 5 points below what's showing.

[DeathRider69]

One toon does have the racial skill up and the others do not.  That would explain a display issue but what about the tools themselves seeming to hamper tradeskilling versus help it?

[CoLD MeTaL]

I find it more difficult to craft with the mara tools as well, but i haven't done that amount of study.  I get a lot more red numbers with tools on.

[Domino]

I just had a quick look at the item, and I can't see anything obviously wrong with its effect.   I have to admit though, I almost never remember to equip my crafting tools in game <img src="/smilies/499fd50bc713bfcdf2ab5a23c00c2d62.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, so I haven't used them extensively enough to have noticed if anything were odd.  However, these tools have been around for a quite a while and you'd think someone would have brought it up before now if there were a problem, so it's possibly just a RNG attack. In any case, I suggest you submit it as a /bug, with as much detail as you have, and that way QA can give it a thorough test and see if there's really a problem or if the RNG just hates you.

[Looker1010]

<cite>DominoDev wrote:</cite><blockquote>I just had a quick look at the item, and I can't see anything obviously wrong with its effect.   I have to admit though, I almost never remember to equip my crafting tools in game <img src="/smilies/499fd50bc713bfcdf2ab5a23c00c2d62.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, so I haven't used them extensively enough to have noticed if anything were odd.  However, these tools have been around for a quite a while and you'd think someone would have brought it up before now if there were a problem, so it's possibly just a RNG attack. In any case, I suggest you submit it as a /bug, with as much detail as you have, and that way QA can give it a thorough test and see if there's really a problem or if the RNG just hates you. </blockquote>There we go. FINALLY SOE has admitted that the RNG hates us. rofl

[Wrapye]

I have had a similar experience as the OP, in that I get more failures using the Isle of Mara item when crafting on my armorer than when I'm not using it.  I never looked at the actual skill, though I will look at that next time I am on that character.

[KerowynnKaotic]

<p>Your "decreased" skill is just a matter of your Real Skill verses your Inflated Skill.  </p><p>ie:  </p><ul><li>My provo dinged lvl 62 .. </li><li>I got a skill increase that read:  306 / 310</li><li>I have no Trait bonuses (wrong race *pouts*) </li><li>My Current Skill in my Persona / Skills / Tradeskills read: 341 / 345.  </li><li>Why?  Because I had the Mara Crafting Tool (+10) and I had just got Provisioner's Insight (+25). </li></ul><p>--- </p><p>I notice a difference on all my crafters with access to a Mara Crafting Tool .. Provo / Alchemist / Sage / Tailor  </p><p>But, I also notice a big difference on the "ease" of crafting between the 4 with or without the tool.  </p><p>ie:  </p><ul><li>My Tailor is "cake" to get pristine.   The Tool just helps it go faster.  Great on Rush writs but can be left off for casual combines.</li><li>My Provo isn't so easy but way easier to get pristine than either of my Scholars.   </li><li>My Scholars .. If I forget to use my macro to equip my Tool & Tinkered item .. I sit there and get RED numbers and more Red Numbers till I fail and finally remember to equip them.  </li></ul><p>*shrug*  </p><p>'tis all a matter of the RNG and possibly the skill/attention of the person playing.</p>